Sunday, January 27, 2019

Matthew 6, Marie Kondo, and the Crushing Weight of the American Dream


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.