Hi Friends,
As April moves into May, I always seem to be bitten with the spring cleaning bug, which leads me to consider my “stuff,” what I need to let go of, what I need to keep. So this month’s article is about just that. I’d love to hear from you. Do you have any “spring cleaning” rituals? How do you feel about “stuff”? Please leave a comment, or hit reply?
A Lifetime Full of Stuff
When my friend’s ninety-two-year-old father died, she and her siblings worked to clean out the home he had lived in with his wife and family for over fifty years. They began by sorting items into categories: pass on to family, sell in estate sale, donate to charity. After they had paid movers to distribute thousands of items in this way, they were still forced to rent dumpsters to trash and recycle the remainders. My friend listed some of the things they tossed into the dumpsters: 325 event programs, one dusty 500-count bag of plastic plates, fifty computer, phone, and small appliance boxes, forty small bottles of hotel toiletries, eight jars of expired ranch dressing, three moth-eaten rugs, several large plastic bins of broken Christmas ornaments, and a tattered six-foot pink artificial Christmas tree. Clearing her father’s home cost money and time, but even more, it drained my friend emotionally. As she told me, “There’s nothing like seeing a lifetime worth of stuff tossed in a dumpster to make you reach for a second pint of Ben and Jerry’s.”
Jesus’ Teaching about Earthly Treasures
Why do we do this? Why do we store up so much stuff, things we no longer need and will never use again? Jesus urged his followers, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6: 19). (He might have said, “where your children won’t care about it, and where dumpsters’ jaws will swallow it.”) As scholar Dan Doriani explains, in this portion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives “two simple commands. Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth. Do store up treasures in heaven….He forbids the forms that hoarding took in antiquity: valuable clothes, and precious metals…if he spoke today, he would address our houses, cars, furnishings, and retirement plans.” Doriani goes on, “[Jesus] does not forbid joyful living or financial planning. He does forbid greed and love of money and selfish luxury” (Doriani, Matthew, 243-245). Jesus wants us to store up treasures in heaven; we do this by carefully considering what we own on this earth and by generously giving to others.
Four Good Reasons For Keeping Stuff
As we consider the stuff we have accumulated, we need to note good reasons for acquiring it or for saving it:
1. We were trying to be thrifty: the 500-count bag of plastic plates purchased for family holiday gatherings, the hotel toiletries saved for future travel.
2. We are afraid to throw them away: tax receipts from fifteen years ago, the chipped Dollar Store mug our granddaughter gave us (what if she finds it missing, after all!).
3. We are emotionally attached to them: wedding gifts of china and silver, children’s and grandchildren’s artwork and recital programs, seasonal ornaments given by college friends forty years ago.
4. We recognize they tell a story about us. This is perhaps one of the best reasons to save stuff. My friend, writer and librarian Suzy Marshall, argues for keeping much of what I might call stuff as a record of history, as original documentation of our culture, and as a way of telling our story. We should all heed Suzy’s counsel to consider carefully the stuff we toss.
Photo by Tania Melnyczuk on Unsplash
Four Good Reasons to Let Go of Stuff
Even though we may have good reasons for much of the stuff we have accumulated, we must also recognize that it’s time to let go of some of it. Stuff clutters our lives, stealing our peace. Stuff clutters our homes, endangering our movement. Stuff clutters our legacy, costing our loved ones. Stuff clutters our minds and hearts, distracting us from focusing on our truest treasure: Jesus and the eternity we will spend with him. It is wise for us to take a good look at our stuff and to begin the practice of letting go. Here are four good reasons to let go of stuff today:
1. Letting go can bring joy and satisfaction.
It is understandably painful to part with objects that have associations with sweet memories, and we need not let go of all of them. But when we give with a warm hand rather than a cold one, we reap the joy of knowing other’s joy in receiving our stuff. Imagine the unemployed woman heading to a job interview in the business attire you no longer need. Imagine incarcerated men passing time in positive ways as they read books you will never read again. Watch your granddaughter learn to play tennis with the racket you haven’t swung in years.
2. Letting go helps us to focus on the “treasures of heaven” and to learn to be content with less.
Not only will we reap the reward of moving more freely through our physical space, letting go of stuff will lead us to discover the freedom of a simpler life. Centuries ago, in his book, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Jeremiah Burroughs wrote, “The world is infinitely deceived in thinking that contentment lies in having more than we already have….I find a sufficiency of satisfaction in my own heart, through the grace of Christ that is in me.” Let’s face it, we live in a consumeristic culture that convinces us that we must have more, more, more. Such a culture programs us for discontentment. Learning to live with less is the unlikely route to greater joy.
3. Letting go of things now prepares us for the day we will let go of our lives on this earth to live with Jesus eternally.
Spiritual director Adele Calhoun observes, “Aging has always been about simplifying and letting go. Sooner or later we realize that we can’t manage all that stuff and activity anymore. We have to let go. The practice of letting go and embracing simplicity is one way we prepare ourselves for what is to come. One day we all will have to let go of everything—even our own breath. It will be a day of utter simplicity—a day when the importance of stuff fades. Learning to live simply prepares us for our last breath while cultivating in us the freedom to truly live here and now.” (Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us, 85).
4. Letting go is a way to bless our loved ones after we’re gone.
As my friend’s story demonstrates, one day we will be gone, and someone else will need to decide what to do with our stuff. It can be a holy blessing, a gift of treasures and stories and records and things we truly valued. But it can also be a mountain of burden, an unholy mess of dusty toilet paper and expired tomato soup, of broken fishing rods and busted dining chairs. Being good stewards of our stuff today is a kindness to our loved ones tomorrow. As we donate and discard, as we organize what we keep, we prepare a legacy that will bless our loved ones in their season of grief. As we deal with these things today, we also bless our loved ones by sharing both stories and possessions they can enjoy today. I am deeply grateful to my mother for letting go of and organizing stuff and sharing previously untold stories as well as important information with me.
Photo by Sarah Brown on Unsplash
How to Let Go of Stuff: Six Tips
Armed with good reasons to let go of stuff, here are six tips for going about it:
1. Set goals before you begin.
Decide what your needs are before you begin. Are you downsizing? How much room will you have in your new space? Are you simply seeking to get rid of and organize stuff to make things easier for your loved ones after you are gone? Write down your goals, including how you will feel when you have achieved them.
2. Make a plan.
It can be overwhelming to think of going through a lifetime of stuff. If we make a plan and schedule time to work on it gradually, we are more likely to reach our goals. Set a regular time on your calendar, fifteen minutes a day, or one hour every Saturday, or three hours each month. This way you will continue to make progress.
3. Start small.
Jane Brody, New York Times personal health columnist, writes: “Set reasonable goals based on your available time and stamina. If a whole closet is too intimidating, even as small a task as clearing items from a single drawer or shelf can get you started in the right direction.” (New York Times, “How to Declutter”).
4. Give with a warm hand.
I love a friend’s saying, “It’s better to give with a warm hand than with a cold one.” If we give away heirlooms now, we get to enjoy the recipient’s pleasure. If you haven’t worn that sapphire ring in five years, why not go ahead and give it to your daughter now? If you don’t use your tools any more because you have a handyman, why not pass them along to your son-in-law today?
5. Categorize.
Some people like to go through their space and gather everything that belongs in a category: chargers, office supplies, coats, papers. When you’ve gathered them all, you can see if you have duplicates or unused items. Once you’ve decided what to keep, organize and label bins, boxes, or bags so you can find things easily. (For a master class in this kind of organizing, check out “The Home Edit Show” on Netflix.)
6. Get help.
Ask friends or family to help make decisions. Hire a teenager to haul heavy bags to be donated or discarded. Consider hiring a service that specializes in organizing and downsizing. Those who don’t have a personal attachment to your stuff can more easily help you make decisions about what to keep and how to organize it.
Dear friends, we don’t have to let go of all our stuff. We do need to take a good look at it, decide what to keep and free ourselves of things that only clutter and complicate our lives. Not only will we know the rest that comes from simplifying our lives, we will discover the joy that comes with stewarding our God-given possessions well.
I’d love to hear from you. How do you feel about letting go of stuff? What things have you enjoyed letting go of? What do you find hard about this process?
You may notice I did not define “stuff”. How would you define it?
Letting Go of Stuff
Thanks for the good work to encourage me to keep Letting Go