The spiritual side of decluttering

This post will be more about questions than answers. Thinking "out loud"... maybe starting a conversation? Because I sure don't have this all sorted.

I have plenty of my own trash that needs to go out.

I've read a couple of the latest books on decluttering. They come from very different standpoints, but I'm intrigued by what they have in common... which is something I haven't really seen addressed before. They both bring in the spiritual.

The books:

Amazon link 

Amazon link

Who hasn't heard of Marie Kondo's book? Her prose and her method are simple, and the book is short. I'm seeing Instagram photos of people's closets and drawers hashtagged #konmari. I've even heard it discussed on podcasts. However, the discussions always get to the exceptions people are making for themselves from Kondo's method; for instance, "I don't greet my house when I come home." More about that later.

The coauthors of Breathing Room are a "spiritual intuitive" and a psychiatrist. It's a much denser, more complicated book than Kondo's. I had to force myself to keep reading, to the point where I wasn't finished when it came due at the library, and I turned it in with a sense of relief. This isn't a review of the book; I just want to point out that their method has far more to do with the emotional and spiritual causes of clutter than any physical method of clearing it. A reviewer on Amazon says the spiritual principles in it are Buddhist.

And, the spiritual principles in Kondo's book are Shinto. I've heard people try to dismiss her approach to objects as merely cultural, but they must be ignoring Kondo's statement that she starts each decluttering project in her business by kneeling in the center of the house and praying to it.

Now, I'm not about to go off on a rant. I'm just establishing that these authors have found, in practical experience with their clients, that decluttering success involves spirituality.

Could there be a lesson here for me, as a Christian, in my struggle with clutter?

I think so.

If there's a spiritual component to clutter and decluttering, we ought to be able to come at it from a Christian point of view. Maybe that would help?

Basic tenet from Jesus: "...one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15, ESV)

Forgetting that is one cause of clutter. Forgetting it can also make it hard to declutter, if part of the problem is a difficulty in letting go of things. These aren't the only issues, for sure. I have a complicated mix of motivations and hangups that go into my clutter problem, and I'm sure it'll be different mixes for different people.

Here's ALL of Luke 12:15:

15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Being covetous can be a root of clutter. It's a sad fact that I often buy yarn faster than I can knit it up, books faster than I can read them. Just yesterday I almost bought a new journal even though I'm only four pages into the current one.

Does covetousness also make it hard to let go?

Let's brainstorm: spiritual issues that make it hard to declutter.

• Fear (of needing something after it's discarded, etc.)
• People-pleasing (I can't get rid of that--Mom/Grandma/Aunt Betty gave it to me)
• Clinging to the dream or fantasy that caused you to acquire the item in the first place

Let's see more ideas in the comments.

Of course there are non-spiritual roadblocks too. Time, energy, all that. Getting around to it.

Here's an idea though: I'm thinking it might be good to start a decluttering project by kneeling in the middle of the house and praying not to the house, but to our Lord, for His aid in overcoming whatever it is we need to overcome within ourselves to succeed at decluttering.

I'd love to see comments... what are your thoughts?

20 things I learned in 2014

I'm participating in a blog linkup with Emily P. Freeman at Chatting at the Sky--What We Learned in 2014.

1) I learned about African refugees from Congo and elsewhere, right here in Illinois, who fled persecution for being Christians.
     Among others, I got acquainted with two sisters who came here with their aunt--their parents were murdered.

2) Don't leave hand-knits within reach of a puppy.
     (Really I knew that, but it only takes a lapse of a few minutes...)

3) That Jeremiah 17:9 does NOT apply to the Christian regenerated under the New Covenant.
     It gets quoted a lot: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" That's the King James and I still have it memorized. But that's an Old Testament verse about the carnal heart! I learned this from John Eldredge's book Waking the Dead.

4) To accept my childlessness.
     Thanks to the Beth Moore study Breaking Free.

5) That I have insulin resistance and the ketogenic diet is the one for me.
     ... in other words: "Butter makes your pants fall off!!"


6) I really really need to journal.

7) Also, I'm supposed to be blogging.

8) However: Writing is not an end in itself.
     whaaaAAAA???

9) I learned disturbing things about the founder of the cult I grew up in.
     More about that some other time... maybe.

10) Why my husband felt sick more often than not for almost a year.
     He had a hidden pocket of infection. When it was finally drained, he felt better immediately. In a friend's words: "No wonder he felt bad--he was full of toxic goo!"

11) That I can buy yarn faster than I can knit it up.

12) It's all very well donating to a cause; the challenge is trying to help a real, live, flawed and neurotic human being whose problems have no easy solution.
     There's someone who just exhausts me. Mostly I just drive her to church, because she doesn't have a car, but just listening to her talk wears me out. I'm not sure if I just need to let her chatter just roll off my back, or what. Do I just need to learn patience?

13) Even mild sleep apnea takes a lot out of you.
     I wrote a whole blog post about it.

14) The power of the Holy Spirit in my life means I don't have to succumb to my fears and weaknesses.
     um... duh?

15) I may have made an agreement many years ago to the effect that I should never reveal my heart.
 
16) Listening to an audio Bible while knitting rocks!

17) I learned about hybrid cameras, and got one.
     Many settings available--aperture, shutter speed, plus digital effects--but the size of a point-and-shoot. Perfect for me!

18) Lots more about introversion.
     I read Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh, and Quiet by Susan Cain.

19) That I'm a direct descendant of John and Priscilla Alden of the Mayflower.
     My aunt did the legwork to prove it to the satisfaction of the Mayflower Society, which she has now joined. I could join too by just appending proof of my descent from her parents.

20) How to survive a polar vortex.
     Wear all the wool!

overwhelm

Been feeling a lot of overwhelm lately. At work, at home. It often leads to collapsing with Facebook... which is counterproductive, of course.

I was thinking about writing about overwhelm earlier this week, jotted down a few thoughts, but Saturday came and I had no rough draft. And I helped with a fundraiser this morning, and vacuumed this afternoon, and I'm pretty tired...

But guess what—Ann Voskamp wrote about overwhelm in her little daily Facebook post (today? Yesterday?) and I ran across it today.

Can I quote her? And here's the rest of it. (scroll way down to the bottom... there's a photo too)

Hey Soul? See that little index finger you have right there?
Here’s the deal: Whenever you feel overwhelmed today? You just point that little index finger out like an arrow. Like an arrow pointing you to that One Rock who is higher than you:
“When my heart is overwhelmed:
lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Ps. 61:2....

No matter what comes at you today: 
Your heart has a rock higher than *any waves.* 

#TalkingGospeltoMyself #LeadMeToTheRock

This comes from Ann Voskamp's blog A Holy Experience, which is on my blogroll. I love the way she writes. I had never heard of her when she spoke at a women's conference I attended. Her talk rocked my world. So of course I purchased and read her book One Thousand Gifts. Heartily recommended.

Failure to breathe

Sleep apnea. a•pnea = not breathing

When we sleep, we can fail to breathe.

Something happens inside, and air can't get in; carbon dioxide can't get out, and builds up in the blood.

My husband wakes me from a dream. "You're going to be late for work..." I grab my device and stare at it in disbelief. Did I shut off the alarm in my sleep?

I stumble out of the bedroom... and land in the recliner, trying to pray, trying to clear my muzzy head.

I'm told I have mild sleep apnea. It barely clears the official definition—I only stop breathing seven times an hour. Only every eight minutes or so.

How many times can you stop breathing in an hour before you never start again?

The brain and the body are trying to repair and rebuild in sleep. It doesn't go so well with inadequate oxygen. So they keep trying to snatch more sleep, while I'm at my desk, while I'm at a stop light.

Pneuma = breath; Spirit

It's so easy to fall asleep spiritually, and let the flesh block the Spirit. To neglect the word of Life, and let our own negativity build up inside.

How many of us are sleepwalking through life, going through the motions without energy, without zeal? Without the refreshing of the Spirit?

Let's breathe.

Stepping out on the water

Did you ever feel the Lord nudging you to do something, and you sort of said, "Oh, OK," but actually did little or nothing?

I've had the Spirit nudging me repeatedly about something. Sometimes I've self-analyzed: "Really? Maybe that's just coming from me..."

I have felt like I don't have time, don't have energy, can't commit to doing something like that regularly. And at other times: I will, I will—real soon now.

More recently, I actually started to try to start—yes, I mean that as convoluted as it sounds. Two days of trying to set a habit, and then... I don't even know what happened. I simply forgot.

I went to my local church's annual women's retreat last weekend. 24 hours away from the grind, at a beautiful Wisconsin resort overlooking a lake and surrounded by fall colors. The theme of the retreat was Sow - Cultivate - Reap. Two things that got to me were:

• Daily Discipline
• Walk on the Water

I know our speaker talked about Peter walking on the water, but the only note I jotted down was the question: "Is He calling you to walk out on the water?"

It might not have stuck, except our little three-girl worship band led us in a song called, "If You Say Go"—twice.

If You say go we will go
If You say wait we will wait
If You say step out on the water
And they say it can't be done
We'll fix our eyes on You and we will come....
Your ways are higher than our ways
And the plans that You have laid are good and true
If You call us to the fire
You will not withdraw Your hand
We'll gaze into the flames and look for You.

—Rita Springer 

During the first time through I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. The thing I'd been getting nudged about. Blogging.

Yes, just blogging. And not even starting a whole other blog—just reviving this one.

For me, it feels like stepping out on the water... because it's NOT coming from me. I don't know where it's leading.

In the "Reap" session, our speaker pointed out that we often don't know what kind of harvest God is bringing. I don't have to have it all figured out before I even start.

The other day, a Christian friend took a step of deeper obedience to the Lord. It surprised me at first only because I would have thought she had long since obeyed in that area. She had, sort of... but held a bit back. She wanted to erase that tiny trace of disobedience.

My dragging my feet on blogging has been disobedience. I realized I couldn't let that day end without writing at least a first draft of a post, even if it took me the rest of the week to click "publish."

So here it is. First step.

Next, Daily Discipline...

...to be continued

Can knitting be an idol?

The Second Commandment, out of only ten: Do not worship idols.

It was the subject of a recent sermon at my church. The preacher acknowledged that actual idols that people literally bow down to are vanishingly rare in modern Western culture. And yet, humans still have this need to worship something. And we still have this tendency to drop our eyes from God to something we can actually see.

I certainly do, anyway. I didn't write for ten years, because writing had become my idol. And when I write that, I don't mean that I nobly and selflessly put it away from me and now I'm all righteous. I mean that I had my idol smashed before my eyes, revealed as the false hope it was, and all my desire to write evaporated.

But that's a story for another time. Because now I'm worried about knitting.

When I arrived at church a couple weeks ago, I realized I'd forgotten to bring my tithe—again. Now, if it were just a bill to be paid, I'd be ok, because there was one more Sunday in the month, I could catch up then. But it's not just a bill... or at least, it shouldn't be. It bothers me that in some ways it IS just another bill to me. It's not the act of worship it should be.

By contrast, I went to a fiber event the day before. I planned way ahead for that. I carefully hoarded my spending money, made sure to get my cash together, thought about what I'd shop for.

Follow the money. What's my priority?

OK, it's not a perfect comparison. Fiber events are rare for me; church is every week, there IS always next week. However, one of the criteria our preacher mentioned for identifying an idol was, "What do you always seem to find money for?" Hmm.

The jury's still out; I don't see most of the other criteria applying to fiber crafts in my life.

However, I do see signs that there may be people out there in the "fiber community" who DO put their crafts in the place of a deity in their lives.

No, they don't bow down before their yarn stashes. But how about acquiring more stash than you can possibly ever knit—and then continuing to purchase more?

Some other criteria from the sermon:

• It is the source of our security.
• It is the source of our identity.
• What do you treasure? Dream about, dwell on?

I see people writing about yarncrafting as if it's their comfort and their solace and their ultimate. Like it's the cure for all social ills. Like only at a fiber-oriented event can they find true fellowship. Is this worship?

Maybe; not necessarily. There's nothing wrong with using knitting to relax after work. Crafts can be a creative outlet, and yarncrafts have the potential for something really useful as the end result.

The trick is that just because something is lovely and comforting and whatever other good qualities it may have, doesn't mean it can provide ultimate fulfillment.

The key statement in the sermon for me came, oddly, in the middle. This is what I want to take away and evaluate myself against whenever I seem to be getting too much into something:

Idols are usually good things that we have made god things.

Another way of thinking about it is, what do I look to for life? (I don't remember where I picked that up; possibly John Piper.)  What do I look to for fulfillment?

I just want to remember that He is the ultimate; anything else good in my life is a gift from Him.

More on "holity"

I have further thoughts on "holity" that didn't quite fit in the page for it. I originally planned to include these in that page, until I realized it needed to define the word more than anything.

I mentioned not wanting to write just a Christan blog. That's not to diss those who do write Christian blogs. There are reasons why that's not such a great idea for me.

Compartmentalization

I have to guard against compartmentalizing my life into "spiritual" and "not spiritual." Maybe a lot of Christians do, but it's been such a strong tendency for much of my life that I still find it rearing its ugly head.

I looked for a definition of the word "compartmentalization" and found it's used in psychology, which I didn't know. Wikipedia says: "Compartmentalization is an unconscious psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person's having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, etc. within themselves."

I don't think I achieved pathological levels with it, but I think this could describe the nominal and/or weak Christian who does things during the week that they hope no one at church hears about. Yes, that has been me from time to time, of course. And that's a huge reason to guard against it—because compartmentalization can lead to hypocrisy.

On a milder level, though, it can mean merely thinking that there's church/spiritual life and then there's "real life," and that they don't have a lot to do with each other. That my job, my hobbies, my activities during the week, my Facebook wall, my friends outside church, are somehow separate from my spirituality. This is a lot  more insidious and hard to detect, and yet it can probably lead to the hypocrisy I mentioned in the last paragraph.

That's what I want to guard against. It would be too easy to chat about knitting without ever thinking about God. So what's wrong with knitting? Nothing, in and of itself. And yet, I observe some things in the knitting community that I'd like to write about sometime from a spiritual standpoint.

And sometimes I just want to write about knitting, or gardening, or whatever. Like I said on the definition page, it'll be the whole of the blog, ALL the posts, that combined will show who I am (especially after I've been at it a while).

Spiritual vs. Secular

The other swing of the pendulum from compartmentalization is the idea that if you're a Christian, the only thing you should talk about or think about or read or do is overtly Christian ideas, books, activities. Perhaps that's how some people guard against compartmentalization—but that's no reason to go too far in the other direction.

God created the whole world and everything in it. He created our creativity and our intellect and our appreciation for beauty. He created sheep and their wool, and created them so they're better off if they get sheared every spring. That wool is amazingly versatile. We can use it only to keep warm, but how much better if we also use our talents to make warm items that are also beautiful? Part of the "image of God" in us is that he made us creative, like He is.

That's just one example of "holity"... the sort of holistic approach I'm talking about and hoping to achieve.