Uncluttering

Too Much, Part 2

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Recently I dreamed that I was with my kids at the library (which I had been, just that afternoon).  I spotted a few books out of order on a shelf and thought I would fix it—I worked in a library one summer, and now it’s a habit for me to correct the occasional mis-shelved book.  I pulled the six books off the shelf and began alphabetizing them properly; it was easy because they were clearly in a series:  same size, same shape, even the same color.  But as I was sorting the handful of books, I began to notice more “stuff” on the shelves out of order.  More books….more ratty, torn-up books….now, suddenly, paper pamphlets….plastic tubs of junk…..and soon the “stuff” wasn’t even in tubs, it was spilling out all over the shelving.  I kept looking at all the things, compared to the neat, short stack of books in my hand, and wondering how on earth I was going to sort through and put that mess in order.  Too much!  Too many things that didn’t even belong there, and things that while “technically” library appropriate were still better fit for the recycling bin.  It was a powerful reminder that some things should not be organized; some things just need to go.

My favorite example of this is a box I saw once labeled “non-working Christmas tree lights.”  Umm….. really?

I heard of two separate instances, just weeks apart, of parents who had saved every single paper their children had done at school.  They then took those boxes and bins and dumped them on their now-grown children, saying, essentially, “This is all your stuff…..I don’t want it anymore.”

I contrast that with a folder we discovered in my sister’s room as she was moving out of the house.  Filed away were some of the notes, poems, and cartoons she and I had drawn and traded with each other over the years we lived together.  The fun we had going through that folder—

“Remember this?”

“Oh, my goodness, I forgot all about this!”

“Look at this one!  Do you remember when that happened?”

It was such joy and a fun memory all its own, over a folder of paper.  Not bins and bins of it.  As my kids are growing up and going through the school system, I try to keep that afternoon first and foremost in my mind as I look at the papers they bring home; or the papers they create at home.  I want, someday, to hand them a binder and have them laugh and shout and say things like “remember this?” and “look at this one!”  I want those papers to be a gift; to be a blessing, not a curse; to be a moment of joy that they will remember fondly, maybe even as their own touchstone for how they keep their own children’s work.

‘You are my everything’

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Singing a praise chorus in church one morning, I was struck by the words “You are my everything.”  It hit me, almost physically:  Wait.  If He is our everything, why do we have so much stuff?  If God is supposed to be our all in all (having noticed it once, I began to notice it everywhere; how often we sing the idea of God being “our all” and “our everything”), why are we so inundated with things, drowning in our clutter?  It makes no sense.  I was struck by the almost hypocrisy of singing the words, knowing how abundantly we were blessed with material goods.  Is he really my everything?  How much do I need to get rid of before he actually becomes that, in truth?

Think about the things we need to survive.  We absolutely need food, and we do need pots and pans to cook it in, dishes and glasses to eat and drink off of.  Now think about how full our kitchens are of specialty equipment, designed to make our lives easier and do all the hard work for us.  Gadgets and gizmos which once looked like a great idea; now jammed in our drawers and cabinets, broken or breaking other items as we try to stuff one more thing in amongst the crowd.  The I can’t get rid of this, I paid good money for it, I might use it someday stuff that makes it hard to close the pantry door.  Or—the saddest kind of clutter—the we’re saving that for a special occasion stuff.  I don’t necessarily mean the Christmas china that comes out seasonally, each year being used for its special, appropriate time.  I mean the china that doesn’t ever come out, the kind that’s “too.”  Too fragile, too antique, too special, too important—it’s a family heirloom!  That was my grandmother’s!  So it never gets used, ever, and instead sits in storage until the day you die, at which point your children (thankfully?) will have no memory of it and will be able to part with it much more easily.  Unless, of course, it’s completely ruined from being stored in a hot, dusty attic or a cold, damp, musty basement.

If God is our everything, why do we have those kinds of items overtaking our homes?

Jesus warns us about this idea in his parable of the rich fool.  Luke 12:16-21 states, “And he told them this parable:  ‘The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop.  He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do?  I have no place to store my crops.’

‘Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do.  I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years.  Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.’

‘But God said to him, ‘You fool!  This very night your life will be demanded from you.  Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

‘This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.’”

Is God truly my everything?

Too Much

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Recently my six-year-old daughter gave me a perfect illustration of “too much.”  Yesterday I was putting a few things away in her room and made the mistake of opening her bedside table drawer.  It actually clattered with all of the random pieces of junk rolling around in it.  So I took the opportunity to…ahem….take care of some things.  I pulled everything out, laid it on her bed, sorted the important (a few books and her precious blanket) from the not important (broken crayons, dried up markers, ancient party favors, dozens of scraps of paper….); dumped the trash and put back what remained.  I always wonder, when I tackle a job like that, what the response will be:  Mom! This looks great!  Or Mom!  Where’s all my stuff!?!

I got my answer that night as I put her to bed.  As she danced around the room getting ready, she looked at me with slightly accusing eyes and demanded, “I want to know who did THAT,” as she pointed to her drawer.

“What?” I asked, as though I had no idea what she was talking about.

“THAT!” she responded.  “That drawer was full of stuff, and now it’s almost empty.  It used to have all this stuff in it, and look,” she pulled it open, “now it only has books and my blanket.”

“Well…..what used to be in there?”

“Lots of stuff!” she cried.

I started to become slightly concerned….after all, maybe there was a treasure in there that she was truly looking for.  It was okay, the stuff hadn’t gone far; it was still retrievable, so I asked her, “What are you missing, sweet girl?”

I’ll never forget the look on her face as she froze, mouth slightly open in an “o,” eyes round and wide.  A pause.  “Nothing!” she finally said, bursting into a smile.

I explained that I’d tried to leave her important things for her, and cleared out all the junk, and she responded joyfully that I had left what was most important (the most important thing in the world is her blanket), and that she didn’t know what else was in there anyway.  She then went back to dancing around her room as she got ready for bed.

That is the kind of uncluttering I’m talking about.  The kind where we’re so buried by stuff we don’t even know what we have; the kind where if it were gone, we wouldn’t even miss it.  The kind that drowns the things that are truly important to us and rattles and clatters around our lives and homes, getting moved from here to there because it has no home, because it doesn’t belong.  The stuff that we don’t even miss when it goes away.  The stuff that makes us want to dance when it’s gone.  That is what I want to expel from my life.  That is what I want to encourage others to expel from theirs.