Don’t Throw Everything Away

I’m sure I ought, for the sake of posterity or someone, to do a full Holy Week after action report, but I’m still way too tired to remember what happened, and by the time I do remember, no one will be interested in hearing about Easter any more. The Internet is too rushy.

No, instead of that, I wanted to remark upon this excellent article from the Atlantic. Minimalizing and Kondo-ing your stuff is all very well and good, Ms. Bernstein writes, but what of the refugee, the person who has had everything they both loved and needed wrested forcibly away and they arrive into a place of safety, with little to nothing. It’s an excellent article and I commend it to you. Her critique of Kondo I found helpful. It actually made me finally want to read the book myself.

She writes, “But beneath some of the self-help-inspired platitudes about how personally enriched you’ll feel after you’ve discarded items you don’t need, there’s an underlying tone of judgment about the emotional wellbeing of those who submit to living in clutter. Those who live in KonMari homes are presented as being more disciplined: invulnerable to the throes of nostalgia, impervious to the temptation of looking back at something that provokes mixed feelings.”

And, “Of course, in order to feel comfortable throwing out all your old socks and handbags, you have to feel pretty confident that you can easily get new ones. Embracing a minimalist lifestyle is an act of trust. For a refugee, that trust has not yet been earned. The idea that going through items cheerfully evaluating whether or not objects inspire happiness is fraught for a family like mine, for whom cherished items have historically been taken away.”

I have never been a refugee, but I am a missionary kid, and every time I went anywhere, my life was paired down to a single suitcase. I was always throwing, evaluating, making unhappy decisions about what I liked best and couldn’t live without, lugging regret across the ocean rolled tightly into each pair of jeans. It trained me to always be in control of my stuff. I always knew exactly what I had and what I didn’t have. It was controllable, by me.

Which is why, I have come to believe, I am stressed out by having to manage the stuff of seven other people. Because I can’t really achieve the level of control that once defined me. I can work at it really hard, but they are people too, who have hands who can pick things up and bring them in, and friends and relations who love them and give them stuff. I would be happier reducing each person’s life to the size of a reasonable suitcase, but that would be morbidly unkind. So I am always trying to die to that impulse.

On the other hand, I do not really believe that there is more where that came from. I could pop out and buy more paper and crayons, I suppose, but oh my word, don’t write one single line across a vast expanse of expensive white and then fling it un-discerningly to the floor. I, who used to carry a jar of Jiff peanut butter in my carry on and make it last for a whole year–how taste and circumstances change, what was I thinking!–scream and rage against the wasting and the breaking. Want to see your mother cry? Leave all the markers strewn over the floor with their lids off so that they will never work again.

I suppose it’s true that on some level the stuff itself doesn’t matter. It’s just stuff. It will all go up in a ball of fire some day and, one by one, before that, we all have to leave it behind as we go down to the grave. Even God, covering himself with our humanity, was stripped of his single expensive garment, woven in one piece from top to bottom. He came into the world with nothing, and left with nothing. And so do we all.

But there the garment is, recorded in scripture. And the perfume that anointed his feet. And the cloth that covered his face in death. The stuff does matter. The clothing that we manage to cobble together so as not to go about ashamed and exposed to the elements isn’t nothing. It contributes to the well being of the body, and to a vastly greater degree than I would like, the comfort of the soul. Sure, you could just put on anything, but why would you? Why wouldn’t you think about it and try to make it decent and nice.

Moreover, the stuff that you clutter around you in your house, well, I just am believing more and more that your perfect house is not actually a reflection of your perfect soul. The person who has no more clutter, who has everything exactly arranged, just so, and it’s nothing but the best, is that person morally better? Is that heart free from lust, idolatry, covetousness, hatred, rebellion, faithlessness? Whether I have a lot or a little, I am not particularly good either way. But sometimes I am, when I arrive at the point of having something nice, or having anything at all, moved to gratitude, to comfort, to beauty.

I told Matt I wanted pink flowers this Easter and he arrived home with all the froufiest, most gorgeous flowers I could have dreamed of. And I had a new dress, and so did the girls, and the boys new shirts and trousers. One of the biggest parts of Holy Week is dealing with the stuff–the stuff at home, the stuff on the altar, the stuff in Sunday school, the flowers, the candles, the running around trying to find something for the acolytes to draw on during the sermon. If we stripped it all out, and just sat in the bare, clean church and just concentrated on the resurrection with the mind, I don’t think we’d be able to get there. The stuff helps, even though it takes work.

But then, yes, it does mean cleaning it all up. And that’s what I need to do now. Have a lovely day!