Yesterday I wrote a post about what makes for human freedom. Most of us uncritically believe that freedom is about a lack of constraint. Limits are something to be thrown off and left behind. Freedom, we’ve been taught, is about self-determination; no limits. We should be free to do whatever we want, so long as we don’t impede other people’s ability to do whatever they want. The fewer the limits, the greater the freedom, right?
I tried to argue for a different perspective. Healthy limits are absolutely essential to the health of the person. Limits are not always something to be thrown off and left behind. For the most part, limits are the only things that keep us healthy.
I wanted to describe a practical exercise that was really helpful.
So my friend Tim told me about this book called, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I would have never run into a book like this because I don’t read chick-books (ba-dum-dum), but I love this idea. The author says: We have so many possessions cluttering up our lives & homes,that we don’t really value any of them properly. We end up viewing most of our possessions as clutter.
By the way, you know the problem with the materialist isn’t that they value material possessions too much, right? The problem is that they don’t value material possession much at all. They really only value the more, the next thing. The stuff they already have is really viewed as clutter, and it is tremendously devalued as the materialist loses their enjoyment of the thing itself.
The author suggests a method for how to impose limits on our lives. She says we should pick a category & do a purge. Don’t go room by room (kitchen, garage, closet), but instead go by categories: clothes, books, electronic gadgets, Japanese origami foldings (just making sure you are still reading). You take one category & put all of it in a pile in front of you–all your clothes, all your books, all of one category–then you look at every item & ask yourself one question: does this bring me joy? If it does, keep it. If it doesn’t, give it away.
The power behind the idea is that once you are done–especially if you will do this throughout your entire house–you will only be surrounded by things that bring you joy. Interesting. So I decided to try this with my clothes last week. I took every piece of clothing I had & put it in a pile. Here’s what it looked like.
(Note the confused look from the dog. This is her first appearance on the blog, so welcome to Paperback Theology Hazel Grace… I did not name the dog. I have my own names for the dog, but they are not suitable for this medium).
My first response was predictable: I had no idea I had this much. It was absurd… years & years of clothing clutter. So, I went through every piece and asked the question. This is a picture of what I was left with at the end:
Yes, I wear bow ties. Yes, they are the kind you tie all by yourself… youtube.com my friends.
So, I have to admit that I did have a sense of freedom when it was all said and done. The effects are lingering even a week later, as every time I go into my closet there’s more space, more structure, I can see everything, and everything I see, I like.
One of the most interesting things about this book is how hungry our culture is for this message. The book has sold over 2 million copies! A friend of mine is a librarian in Johnson County. He looked the book up in their system and the waiting list to check out Marie Kondo’s book is 350 people long.
This tells me that our society is desperate for someone to help them set limits in their lives. The church should be way out in front on this issue. Instead we have gone along with a materialistic and consumeristic culture. We do not embody an alternate way of life with regard to money, possessions, and stuff.
I’m thinking about purging my whole house, one category at a time…. except for books (obviously. I’m keeping all my books. Keep your hands off my books…
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