Your Bright Treasure

Alice Munro, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013 for her beautifully complex short stories, died earlier this month at her home in Ontario, Canada, at the age of 92. Known as a pioneer in her field, Munro liked to play with time -- allowing her characters to move forward and backward in the narrative as the story unfolds.

Consider this excerpt from her 2004 collection Runaway: 

This is what happens. You put it away for a little while, and now and again you look in the closet for something else and you remember, and you think, soon. Then it becomes something that is just there, in the closet, and other things get crowded in front of it and on top of it and finally you don't think about it at all.

The thing that was your bright treasure. You don't think about it. A loss you could not contemplate at one time, and now it becomes something you can barely remember.

This is what happens. ... Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you.

Munro published 14 short story collections in her lifetime, and her works will be remembered for their wisdom and emotional complexity. Do you hear the scriptural echoes here?

Remember Jesus' warning in Luke 12: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. As we store up our hope in heaven rather than in earthly possessions and accomplishments, how do we live a life that reflects the treasure of our faith? How will you bring your treasure out of the crowded chaos of your bedroom closet, ensuring that it is a bright light for others to see?