Life Is More than Abundance of Possessions

A fraction of a penny was all it took for Chester Carlson to amass a fortune. It helped that he earned that fraction of a penny on every single photocopy made on a Xerox machine. But even more remarkable than the fortune is what Chester did with his money.

Chester was born in Minnesota in 1906. His father suffered from both tuberculosis and severe arthritis in his spine, that left him unable to work for much of Chester’s life. Chester’s odd jobs become the household’s main source of income by the time he was in high school. During his junior year, his Mom died, leaving Chester to provide for himself and his father.

Chester was an inventor at heart. He kept a notebook full of ideas of all kinds. The notebook expanded during his three years at a local junior college and as he finished at Cal Tech with a degree in Physics. Chester went to work for Bell Labs, first as a researcher, then in their patent department. While working in the patent office, Chester took law classes. He could not afford his textbooks and so spent many hours at the library often copying long passages down by hand. This got Chester working on the problem of document duplication.

By 1937, Chester was ready to apply for a patent of his own for a process that would later be named xerography. On October 22, 1938, Chester’s theories had gone so far as to allow him to make the first photocopy. As Chester Carlson worked to market the invention, he was turned away by 20 companies including Kodak and IBM before convincing Haloid to take on the project after a decade of working to sell the concept.

Years of refining were still needed. Other engineers worked on the project and Haloid changed its name to Xerox, but Chester stayed with his baby and it paid off in ways he could never have foreseen. He got a mere fraction of a cent for every photocopy. In 1964, that was nine and a half billion copies. Chester amassed more than 200 million dollars in a hurry.

Chester built a fairly modest three bedroom house in which he and his wife lived out their days. The last 10 years of his life, Chester spent giving away money faster than he could make it. His philanthropy seemed to know no bounds and it was mostly anonymous. He built university buildings and had other people’s names put on them. Chester supported Civil Rights, international aid organizations, libraries and more. 

When Chester died in 1968 at the age of 62, with far more money than he could give away even while working at it very hard. The Secretary-General of the United Nations said, “He was generally known as the inventor of xerography, and although it was an extraordinary achievement in the technological and scientific field, I respected him more as a man of exceptional moral stature…. He belonged to that rare breed of leaders who generate in our hearts faith in man and hope for the future.”

Jesus taught that, “Not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). Jesus followed that saying with the parable of a rich man who is my second success story.

The rich man has such a bumper crop that he no longer has enough barns to store all his land has produced. The man decides to build larger barns so that he can live for many years off the fat of the land. The man in the parable is convinced that he finally has it made. He finally has enough stuff to sit back and relax. Jesus warns that Judgment Day could come that very night. Or as Jesus not too subtly puts it, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

When it comes to the end of life, stuff is just stuff. Any stuff you own will not in and of itself make you happier. The picture on the big flat screen TV may be nice and sharp, but that alone will not bring you any extra happiness. The Hummer may turn heads in traffic, but the driver isn’t a better person for owning that car.

Chester Carlson with his hundreds of millions learned that giving gave more pleasure than acquiring. It was the rich man in Jesus’ parable who could not learn the lesson. He based his happiness on acquiring enough wealth to eat drink and be merry.

What if you could already tap into that happiness? Wouldn’t it be better to find joy whether you ever find yourself sitting on a mountain of money?

Jesus offers a way out, a way to have peace whether you have a lot or a little. Jesus answer is to realize that your life is not made up of the abundance of possessions.

Get the stuff you need. Take care of yourself and your family. But don’t bet your happiness or theirs on accumulating just the right stuff. Even if you get that whole living room you want from The Pottery or the bedroom set that would put the Dream House to shame, it will not bring you happiness. Stuff is just stuff.

Right now, as at the end of your days, what matters more than stuffs is relationships. Making peace with yourself. Working on relationships with family and friends. And yes, most importantly, making room for your relationship with God. These are investments of your time, energy and money that pay off.

Work on these relationships rather than amassing possessions. These relationships with family, friends and God will pay off whether your life becomes a financial success or not. For life consists of much more than the abundance of possessions. 

            (The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)

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