I was minding my own business the day I first came across
the name Marie Kondo. She appeared almost
instantaneously before me, in my news feed, on Facebook, EVERYWHERE. After about the twentieth article I
encountered, I decided it was time to find out who this person was, which led
me to watch an episode of her show.
For those of you who don’t know yet, Marie Kondo is a
Japanese woman who developed a system of personal organization. She wrote a book about this several years
ago, but it never took off, that is until Netflix decided to turn the book into
a series of television episodes where she enters people’s homes and helps them
dig out from under their things and simplify their lives.
To be honest, after watching the first episode I half
expected that I would soon see an avalanche of articles from Christian authors
decrying the show and its somewhat more mystical elements. Ms. Kondo encourages people to gather their
belongings into piles, take each item into one’s hand asking oneself “Does this
item spark joy in my life?” If the
answer is yes, it goes into the keep pile, if the answer is no, then the person
is instructed to thank the item for its service and to move the article to the
discard pile. Kondo ascribes an almost
animist viewpoint to these inanimate objects.
I knew that the Christian pop culture police would soon be in full take
down mode.
But after watching a few episodes, the thing that struck me
was that the people the show highlighted, while not hoarders, were nonetheless
suffering because of their excess. They
were victims in many ways of their lack of discretion about the items they
brought into their homes. They were
buried in knick-knacks, collections of meaninglessness. The stuff caused issues in their marriages,
kept them from inviting people to their homes, and in some cases kept them from
moving forward in their lives and relationships. In many ways they were all victims of the
very excess the American dream invited them to acquire.
One of the techniques Ms. Kondo utilizes to confront peoples
excess is to ask the person to gather all of a category of items into a giant
pile, whether it be clothes or books, papers or miscellaneous items. When confronted with the mass of excess all
in a pile, most people are shocked and embarrassed by how much they have. A person’s clothing, for instance, might be piled
up to the ceiling or in some cases filling an entire room. It’s astonishing how we can allow these items
to infiltrate our lives almost without realizing just how far we’ve overdone
it.
Diane and I watched several episodes of the show together
and we were almost instantly cleaning out our closets and drawers. To be honest, the episodes are not really all
that interesting, they don’t reveal much of Ms. Kondo’s actual methods and the
episodes seem a bit too repetitive to hold my interest, however the similarity
in people’s stories is kind of the point.
I think a great many of us have homes with far too much stuff.
As I cleaned out my closets the thing I kept asking myself
was not, “Does this item bring me joy?” The question I kept asking myself was,
“Have I used this item God provided me to its fullest usefulness?”, “Have I been
a good steward of this thing God provided me?”
“Did I need it to begin with?” “Have
I made good use of it?” “Did I intend to
make use of it in my future?” In many cases
I found myself quietly repenting as I moved 30 plus shirts into the discard
pile, some with the store tags still on them.
As I was being continuously confronted with the excess I had
allowed into my life and as I repeatedly apologized to God for each item I had
carelessly allowed to invade a space in my life and home, I felt a shift taking
place.
I want to be clear that unloading a bunch of things will
provide you no more peace than the false comfort provided by amassing
them. We can be just as much in sin
decluttering our lives as we can be by mindlessly amassing stuff. But I do think that the act of mindfully
inventorying all of your things and confronting yourself with the reality of the
mass of your possessions is a worthwhile endeavor, whether you are a hoarder, a
minimalist, or anywhere in between. By
the way, I believe a minimalist can be just as much a covetous glutton as
person with 39 cats and 450 Christmas nutcrackers!
Matthew 6:11 says “Give us today our daily bread”. This is part of the Lord’s prayer. Jesus was teaching his disciples and us how
to pray. There’s a ton packed into this little verse and I believe it is at the
heart of what is resonating with people about Marie Kondo. In America in particular, we have completely
lost touch with the intent of this little verse. Jesus tells us to ask God to give us what we
need to get by, no more, no less. But we
live in a world that plans, that collects, that amasses. We don’t need “daily” bread. We have a month’s food in our cupboards. We don’t need God to provide clothing, we
have 100 shirts and 25 pairs of shoes (probably an understatement for a lot of
you).
As my pastor pointed out this morning, its interesting that
Jesus never told us to thank God for the food sitting in front of us. He told us to ask God for our next meal. When we ask God to provide our next meal, we
are admitting that it is God who is going to provide that meal, and He doesn’t
have to.
I want to be cognizant of the
fact that its not easy to live in our culture and not be caught up in all its
trappings. This is a constant struggle
for me. There are legitimate reasons
people might end up with too many pieces of clothing, for instance simply never
throwing anything away. Many of us live
by the mantra, “I might need that someday”, and let’s face it, someday almost
never comes.
The proper time for mindfulness about our things is before
we acquire them not after. Its being
thankful for what we have so we do not feel the need to always get more. It is daily acknowledging God as our provider
rather than ignoring Him while we provide for every need by ourselves. Maire Kondo is a fad that strikes at the
heart of much of what is wrong with our society, as such, its resonating with
many right now. Sadly, decluttering your
home will not provide you with the one thing we all need.
Need.
