A New Moral: Minimalism

I have a growing percolating interest in the whole Minimalism thing. For starters, I have a friend who is trying to keep simplicity as her main thing. She blogs about it here. The thing that is lovely about her is that her Christianity is in the driver’s seat, that she is trying to keep her life open for the service of the gospel and not be overburdened with stuff.

Because, for reals, who among us isn’t overburdened with stuff. So Minimalism. When you have an economic system driven by the consumption of consumables by a consumer, you’re bound to have some people wake up one day and say, ‘enough already’ and if those people have an Internet connection and a blog, of course eventually they will go on a speaking tour.

Which is what did happen, from the little poking around that I’ve done, to the Minimalists. There’s the blog, the podcast, the books, and the spinoffs. And that’s before we’ve gotten anywhere near Marie Kondo.

What I’m interested in is how religious it’s sounding. I listened to a most relevant podcast about how to be minimalist with children, expecting to hear tips, like, I don’t know, throw away all the toys and then watch them cry. I think other people were hoping that would be the advice based on the questions that were being tweeted (and what a strange turn of phrase that is–were being tweeted, have been tweeted….). That and the clear deeply held desire for permission to tell the other person in your life that We’re Getting Rid Of It All Now. But these two young gurus didn’t give said permission. Instead they rambled into the space Christians like to hide in when they don’t really want to talk about Jesus, the Let Your Life So Shine space, the Preach Always And If Necessary Use Words space. The great thing about that space, for Christians, is that, did you know, if you work really hard, you can convince yourself that it’s never necessary to use words, you can just live the glory of a perfect life.

Honestly, these two sounded like those many. Just live out the effects of minimalism. If you live a minimalist life yourself, other people will see you and think, That’s Lovely, I totally want to do that. And, of course, if they ask, you can explain to them why you’re making the choices you are, and that will induce them, hopefully, to adopt this lifestyle.

Because that’s what it is, a lifestyle, a personal choice. You can be anything you want to be, as long as you’re not hurting anyone, and minimalism is one of those life choices along with all the others. But–and I’m pretty sure I am seeing glimmers of this in what I’m reading and listening to–it’s being billed as a Morally Good life choice. I would even go so far as to say that it’s as morally good as the new way of eating, where you are careful where your food comes from. It’s not just that you make that choice for yourself, you’re pretty sure that being careful about where your food comes from is a Moral Choice. Christians like, occasionally, to make this about Jesus. Like God himself cares about where your food comes from, that he will hold you accountable on judgment day for all the slave coffee you drank. In a similar way, as I listened to these two young people chat, I realized that they think they, although I’m sure they would never say this or maybe even think it, are doing a Morally Right Thing by not having too much stuff.

I banged around in my house as I listened, trying to put my own stuff away, muttering some of the phrases that should help you through this modern life–everything should have a place, one in one out, la la la. One thing you can do, in the minimalist way, is to take a complete inventory of everything that you own, so you know, as it were, what’s there. You can also alert family and friends well before birthdays and Christmas that you don’t want them to get you, and more importantly, your children, more stuff than will be required for your happiness. You might have an approved list (I don’t think they said it that way, but it was darkly hinted), you might have the “hard conversations”. And all of it will lead to the good life, to peace and order for yourself and those you love.

But see, these two, chatting merrily along, seemed to have jettisoned one very interesting institution that has heretofore been considered a Moral Choice, a way to live the good life, a path to peace and order for yourself and those you love. One kept referring to his “partner”, the woman he is with now, and her child. Whenever anyone tweeted in, the word “partner” was used, which could mean lots of things, as we all know, it’s a morally neutral term to make room for everybody’s lifestyle choice. See, marriage isn’t anything. It’s not moral or immoral or anything. It’s just something you can chose, like minimalism, like your preferred number of children.

But oh, the dripping, whatchamacallit, judgement against the person who has too much stuff. See, even though we say it’s a choice, to the believer who believes, it’s the Best Choice. If you can not consume too much and have a plain uncluttered, precisely decorated house, you are a Good Person. Never mind whatever else you do.

But I’m the hater, because I think the bible sets forth the moral choice. Honestly, I don’t care how much stuff anyone has. Are you a person who likes clutter? Who likes clean? Who collects everything? Who could be several episodes of Hoarders? Who locally sources organic beef? Who never mops the floor? Who only mops the floor and never does anything else? Who sends your kids to school? Who home schools them all? None of those are particularly addressed in scripture. I have no business taking my personal preferences and foisting them as a law onto other people. This is such a puritanical age, an age of the Law, only the Law doesn’t have anything any more to do with actual goodness and rightness. I would much rather have an external, objective, divinely ordained Law that has to do with the actions of each person, than this mealy, subjective, pharisaical landscape where if someone loves you and gives you a lot of stuff suddenly you’ve fallen into sin and it’s still their fault.

Guilt is essential to the human person. We are guilty and so we feel guilty and so we derive ways for ourselves to be shriven of our guilt. We run marathons and 5Ks, we buy our shoes from people who promise to give a shoe away with each purchase, we fill up the Internet with Moral Memes, and, now, by gum, we DeClutter, we DeClutter all that nasty sin away. But all of it is a chasing after the wind, a futility, if we don’t look at the sin that’s really there, the total ugly rejection of God and who he is and his law. The nice thing about God, and boy am I grateful about this, is that if I have too much stuff, especially stuff that was given to me by people who love me, I haven’t sinned unless I brew up some hatred for them in my heart. And so I don’t have to say sorry about that. I can just ask God for help, for energy, for more storage, for grace and mercy but I’m not in sin just by having the stuff. And! and this is the best part, when I do actually sin, when I am unkind, uncharitable, selfish, short tempered, heck, even if I murder, I don’t have to cleanse myself of my own sin. What I have to do is, say Sorry, I have to repent. I get to fling myself onto the mercy of Jesus who paid for that sin for me. (Gosh, I wish autocorrect would stop changing sin to win.)

I might probably blog about this some more some time. There are a lot of those podcasts, and I have a lot of stuff to throw away, so watch this space for more arm waving and shouting.