I have digitalised 77 old cassettes! What a perfect number! I wouldn’t write a blog post just to say that; obviously it has a context. A long context.

For the last 50 years, and I am not 60 yet, I have lived with the burden of collections, recordings (of various kinds), and incomplete projects, including partially written books and languages partially learned—all good and wholesome—some even admirable. This collection of cassettes is a part of this “burden.”

I am confident, standing firmly on the promises of the Bible, that our lives here on earth are a blip when contrasted with eternity, but I also am convinced that this will be a most consequential blip. I’ve got to make my life here count for something, and for something that will hold value into eternity. The Bible gives us many insider ideas as to how this can be achieved.

Much as I want to sink my teeth into my hobbies, I don’t want to waste precious time. What is the best way of utilizing my time and energy? Art and learning and travel and music and gardening and many more beautiful and wholesome pursuits can be taken up in heaven, if needed.

However, I am not convinced that I can simply throw away my collections, photo albums, and genealogical research? (A blog like this is nice, as I can shake the burden of my thoughts off onto it, but would I keep the blog going after my death, I am not so sure. It is quite complicated, isn’t it? If I want it to last after my lifetime, then I need to set funds apart for this. And my mind does not want to stretch that far.)

I love Jesus, and am so grateful for the joy and expectant hope that He has filled me with. I want to share Jesus with others. I need time for that. Like the old song goes:

I’ll shout it from the mountaintop / I want my world to know: / The God of love / Has come to me; / I want to pass it on.

It only takes a spark by Kurt Kaiser

So, I wish I could break free from everything that slows me and ties me down to the temporal. But as I have already stated, it does not feel right to just chuck all my hoarded collections into the trash bin.

The pathetic compromise I have come up with, for the time being, is to intentionally complete completable projects, give away givable, hoarded things, and retire retirable pursuits that entangle and slow me down. I know that the God who gave us the faculties to create and enjoy art and learning will have wonders beyond comprehension waiting for us in that eternal Day to which we are headed. So it all makes sense to pursue freedom to serve Him more fully in the here and now.

OK, that was the back story for the cassettes conversion. I can now trash these cassettes, and forget about them, with all their old music, recordings of my children, recordings of me as a little child, recordings of my cousins, and many other precious sounds from the past. If I or someone else yearns for them, we have only to look in the hard drive. Simple. Good riddance to these cassettes!

In case someone else wants to convert their tapes, here’s how I did it.