![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/578\/2016\/07\/image-4-240x300.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWell, here I am in this beautiful house, with walls that don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re made of cardboard paper, and views out of every window. And there in all these boxes is a lot of junk. So I started to tip the contents of one of my boxes straight into the drawer, and then, as the first two garments fell in, I was stricken to the heart. \u201cI can\u2019t put that shirt in there!\u201d my soul cried out to the universe, \u201clet alone on my body.\u201d So I chucked it into a pile in the corner. And then I tried again. And, get this, the very same thing happened<\/i>. So I sat down on my bed and watched five or seven videos about how to fold all the things. Spent an entire day just folding clothes and doing nothing else.
\nThree<\/b>
\nAnd then, of course, it was so life changing that I showed my mother, and all my children, how to fold. Elphine promptly closed the door of her new room, took everything out of her drawers, and laboriously folded the contents of her life to perfection. As a result, her room is a complete mess. But the insides of every drawer look like a magazine.
\nFour<\/b>
\nI know I say it all the time, but I really think that life should be about people and not things. Which is what the minimalists say. Don\u2019t treat people like things. And I always say to them, even though they can\u2019t hear me, \u201cdon\u2019t think so much about your things.\u201d But if you don\u2019t think sometimes about your things, you end up buried under them, and then you can\u2019t get outside to be with the people.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m pretty sure, although I need to do a lot more folding and throwing away, that having all my drawers perfectly folded actually frees up some much needed emotional and mental space for all the people. I am more than sure that I can take this Too Far, but with all these boxes piled up, I\u2019m not probably in danger yet.
\nFive<\/b>
\nSomeone lovely asked what my strategy for packing and moving was. What did we keep and not keep? And what about the children collecting so much stuff just by virtue of their existence? That\u2019s a great question. And the reality of who I am and what I did was entirely the wrong answer.<\/p>\n
Just like last time, we kept everything. We put everything into boxes and brought it all over here. I really can\u2019t recommend doing it this way. It would have been so smart of me to throw away all my belongings Before entering this gorgeous house. But I didn\u2019t. I just shoved it all in and here I am. Of course, being here has clarified reality for me. I am not having a hard time throwing things away. I pick an object, look out the window, and easily throw into the dustbin of history. I wasn\u2019t able to do this before the move. I was tired, and overwhelmed by the thought everything.
\nSix<\/b>
\nAnd what about the children? Well. All their stuff is in bins in the basement. I haven\u2019t let them open any of the bins. I am going to go down, Alone, and work methodically through the bins, hopefully throwing away everything. What they have in their rooms right now, which is essentially nothing, is sufficient.
\nSeven<\/b>
\nWish we could do this with our political system. It seems to me, looking in from the outside, and of course I could be completely wrong, that all our politicians are looking at us, the American public, like things and not people. Maybe they should all have to move out of their offices, clear out all the clutter, and live in little huts all around the perimeter of DC, having nothing but a bed and a single, perfectly folded, dresser drawer. And once they\u2019ve learned to fold properly, and learned to make someone else a good cup of coffee, then we could talk about who could move back in, and who should stay where they are.<\/p>\n
The thing is, life is messy, and people are awful. And the tidy drawer doesn\u2019t actually solve all of the world\u2019s problems. But wouldn\u2019t it be so great if it did?<\/p>\n
Go check out more quick takes<\/a>!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One So I guess Trump was basically sane in his speech last night? Tried to stay up to watch it but fell asleep during all the strange music. \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d, which I\u2019m pretty sure was being crooned into a microphone, wound its way into my dreams. Only the word \u2018great\u2019 kept being snatched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2373,"featured_media":4857,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,15,21],"tags":[32,34,55,57],"class_list":["post-4862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-watch-2","category-life-going-on","category-work-and-the-christian","tag-clutter","tag-culture-watch","tag-moving-suddenly","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/578\/2016\/07\/image-4.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n