[Faith-talk] {Spam?} Daily Thought for Tuesday, May 10, 2016

[Ericka]

Though long it is a very good article.
I've lived with a hoarder and I could tell you stories but there is a space and your time. I totally agree with this wonderful article that we need to look at things from more than just the "if you don't need it get rid of it ". Viewpoint.
Like faith mastering  decluttering is a journey! 

Ericka Short
"What is right is not always popular; what is popular is not always right."

 from my iPhone

> On May 10, 2016, at 11:05 AM, Paul Smith via Faith-talk <faith-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello and good day to most of you for the second time.  Hope your day is going well, by God's matchless grace and His providential care.
> 
> As stated yesterday, the article presented now is at least twice as long as yesterday's baffling Bible Questions answered, and for this reason you just might wish to read it in stages.  Besides, an Internet event scheduled for about this time had to be cancelled, so this freed up my time.  The title of the article is ""Cluttered Lives" by Diana Dworin, rendered as follows and originally appeared in "The Lutheran" for December 2012:
> 
> The spiritual practice of shedding stuff
> 
> In a room near the end of a hallway, chairs form a circle as Eileen Stevie waits to greet those who feel overwhelmed.  Once a month at Christ the King Lutheran Church, Cary, N.C., she leads a group that focuses on a single, soul-searching question:
> 
> How can we free up more space for the important things of life?
> 
> But Stevie, a professional organizer, doesn't lead a Bible study.  Instead, she facilitates a de-cluttering support group in the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan region that encourages people to strip down their possessions and simplify their lives.
> 
> "Clutter is a huge problem everywhere in our country," she said.  "We're consumers here.  We buy things even when we don't need them.  We have to get that new TV even if our old one still works.  We save things because we think we might need them later or we don't want to feel wasteful.
> 
> "There's stuff clutter that takes over our houses, and there's the "time" of activities that keep us so busy we don't have time to think.  Then we've got "paper" clutter that piles up all over the place, and we've got "mental" clutter--like holding grudges and not forgiving others--that can prevent us from moving forward and getting on with our lives.
> 
> "Clutter is an addiction--just like alcohol, food, or smoking.  It can take over your life."
> 
> 
> 
> A clutter-filled world
> 
> In the broadest sense, clutter can be anything that clogs our opportunity to experience life at its fullest.  Clutter includes possessions we don't use, want, or need.  It's the unnecessary things we keep--old clothes we no longer wear and toys the kids haven't played with in years, or collectibles and knickknacks displayed in our homes.
> 
> Clutter also includes the non-essential ways we spend our hours and energy on extraneous activities and "busy-ness."  It's evidenced by jammed-packed calendars and unfocused idleness, such as aimlessly surfing the Internet or logging on to Facebook for hours on end.
> 
> It also takes psychological and spiritual forms, from maintaining unhealthy relationships to nursing the wounds of hurts from years past.
> 
> "We use clutter to try to anesthetize ourselves from pain and fear," said Brooks Palmer, author of "Clutter Busting:  Letting Go of What's Holding You back" (New World Library, 2009).  "Clutter can be a buffer or an insulator for us.  We have it because we're fragile creatures and clutter can make us feel as if we're protected."
> 
> Palmer says we gravitate toward clutter--a contention that's supported by the research of social scientists.
> 
> The Center on Everyday Lives of Families at the University of California, Los Angeles, recently finished a multi year study that documented a staggering number of possessions within the 32 sample suburban homes it tracked.  Among the study's dual-income, middle-class households with school-aged children, researchers uncovered treasure troves of trinkets, gadgets, furniture, souvenirs, toys, and more.  Seventy-five percent of families' garages had no room for cars because of spillover items from the house.
> 
> Another indicator of our clutter culture is the surge of storage facilities.  There are more than 54,000 self-storage businesses nationwide, offering 78 square miles of rental room.  That's 7.3 square feet of space for every person in the country, according to the Self Storage Association, a trade group based in Alexandria, Va.
> 
> What's more, discount stores now devote aisles of shopping space to home organization and storage items.  And specialty chains, including The Container Store, add locations each year to keep up with consumer demand for stuff to hold stuff.
> 
> Our preoccupation with clutter also has evolved into a spruce of entertainment.  Popular cable TV programs such as "Hoarders and Hoarding:  Buried Alive" take viewers into the homes and personal lives of people with obsessive compulsions to keep things.
> 
> In some respects, our tendency to accumulate clutter traces back to our country's founding emphasis on independence and self-reliance.  Hundreds of years ago settlers filled their homesteads with salted meats and firewood to survive long, grueling winters.  Modern suburban families now load up at Costco and stockpile toilet paper and economy-sized jars of peanut butter with a similar sense of urgency.
> 
> Economic cycles and national times of crisis also come into play.  The Depression taught many of today's elderly tough lessons about staying prepared for hard times and keeping things that might later serve useful.
> 
> Our drive to acquire things even became associated with patriotic duty when, in the days following the Sept. 11 tragedy in 2001, elected leaders urged Americans to go shopping as a way of returning to normalcy.
> 
> Times of economic prosperity have catalyzed fevers of unfocused consumerism--and now, despite our country's lingering recession, the Advent season is inundated with messages to shop and acquire.
> 
> 
> 
> Reasons for clutter
> 
> "It's no surprise that clutter is an epidemic," Palmer said.  After all, we're surrounded by media messages that tell us there's something wrong with our lives.
> 
> "We're taught from the time we're very young, whether we realize it or not, that something isn't right and we need something to make it better," said Palmer, who also works as a Chicago area artist and commedian.  "Advertisements have an underlying theme that says, "You're not OK, but you will be OK if you do this or get this.  It's very effective and it's how clutter can get a start."
> 
> Palmer finds repetitions of this theme everywhere.  He sees it on billboards, on the sides of buses, splashed across magazine pages and piled up in email spam filters.  "It makes people feel as if they need "stuff" as an insulator against pain." he said.  "People often bring thins into their lives as a way to give themselves an idea than they're stronger or more powerful than their true, vulnerable selves really are.  They start to think that if they get the right mate or the right job or attain something spiritually or get more money, they'll be safer.
> 
> "But the truth is, stuff doesn't make you any safer.  It's just false armor."
> 
> Kate Blanchard, an associate professor of religious studies at Alma (Mich) College, agrees:  "When you feel afraid, it's just so much easier to be comforted by the things you can see than by the God you can't see."
> 
> Spiritual director Pamela Czarnota often meets with people who feel the draining effects of clutter in their spiritual lives.  "Clutter is symptomatic of our failing attempts to satisfy and soothe our souls," said Czarnota, who also serves as an associate in ministry at Christ the Redeemer Lutheran Church, Brecksville, Ohio.
> 
> "We have an inner hunger that is part of us and we're alway looking to fill it," she said.  "It's the thing in our being that M. Scott Peck (an American psychologist and author of "The Road Less Traveled") called "the God-shaped vacuum"--and we try to fill it with things that can never really satisfy.
> 
> "The world will always tempt us to live a cluttered life to fill that vacuum.  It's not that distractions and diversions or clutter trashes our lives, but what it does do is that it blurs our understanding of the clear purpose that God has in mind for the world."
> 
> 
> 
> Our relationship with clutter
> 
> The accumulation of extraneous possessions is a topic people of faith have grappled with for centuries.  Martin Luther, for example, would be floored by the amount of clutter in our lives, Blanchard said.
> 
> "In his wildest dreams, Luther probably couldn't have imagined the amount of stuff most of us have today.  He lived in a feudal society where most of the folks he knew were poor peasants," she said.  "Even the richest of the rich in 1500's Germany would have been less well off in terms of material goods than your average American who shops at Walmart or Target--so clutter as we know it probably wasn't one of is major concerns."
> 
> "If Luther was speaking to 21st-century Christians about clutter, he would probably tell them to read the Scriptures and then trust the Spirit to let them know how much stuff was too much," Blanchard said.
> 
> "On the other hand, he wasn't totally naive; he bemoaned a Christian's love of material comfort and capacity for self-deception," she said.  "This is where Christian community can be helpful.  Christians should think and meditate together on "stuff" in order to become more aware of their own feelings about it, to help one another change their relationships to it.
> 
> Examining the ties we have to our possessions is a yearly event at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Augusta, Maine.  For years, members have organized an annual "Giant Lawn Sale" of donated items culled from their homes.  The items aren't tagged--buyers name the price--and the money raised benefits local charities, including food pantries and soup kitchens.
> 
> During the past decade, church member Cindy Gyorgy has watched parishioners jettison thousands of items:  furniture, baby supplies, home decor, kitchen gadgets, and more.  "People feel good about having their stuff go to people who can use it," said Gyorgy.
> 
> The process of shedding clutter has become a spiritual practice for Gyorgy.  Each year the sale makes her pause to consider how much clutter she keeps--and it's an opportunity for her to discern what she can share with others.
> 
> Gyorgy said it has helped transform the connection she feels toward her possessions.  "I use one coffee mug every day of my life, so do I really need a bunch of them?" she said.  "I think about things like my hand mixers.  I have two of them, and there's no way I can use them at the same time.  It makes me wonder why I have that."
> 
> "After a while, when you stop and think about it, it really does surprise you how much stuff you actually have that we don't really need in our life."
> 
> Denise Lee, a professional organizer in St. Louis, helps spur epiphanies like this with clients who come to her for help with de-cluttering.  Many of them view their decisions to part with possessions as a way to dispose of distractions that get in the way of peace and spiritual development.
> 
> "Faith does come up in this process for a lot of people, and they do say that reducing their clutter will help them build up more gratitude for things they keep," said Lee, a member of Bethel Lutheran Church, St. Louis.  "It can be a very powerful perspective from which to work."
> 
> 
> 
> The needed thing
> 
> Although experts say our clutter culture is expanding, people of faith have grappled with this issue since ancient times.  Open your Bible to Exodus 16 and you'll read about God's people hoarding more manna in the desert than they needed to get by for the day, said Lisa E. Dahill, an associate professor of worship and Christian spirituality at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.  Trusting in God's provision--and not in our acquisitions--continues to be a source of spiritual struggle for many today, she said.
> 
> "There is sort of a human need and a disordered desire to hoard," she said.  "I think there is a fear of the uncertainty of the future, and there's a fear that we still hold today of "desert" experiences. It's the fear of emptiness and aloneness, and we do things to try to fill in for that fear.  That's one of the reasons we overload our schedules and hoard things."
> 
> Dahill looks to the story of Jesus' visit with sisters Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42) for guidance on what's needed for the fullest experience of life--and it's not more stuff for our homes or events on our calendars, she said.
> 
> Rather than distracting ourselves with busy pursuits--even worthy ones, such as the household tasks that Martha tackled--we can look to Christ for clues on what's needed and what's clutter, she said.  Jesus commended Mary for freeing up space during His visit to simply be present with Him--essentially to experience a clutter-free life with God.
> 
> "It isn't that Martha is doing something bac," Dahill said.  "But in this case, whatever she was doing was distracting her and keeping her from the one thing that's needed.  This "needed thing" is, in some sense, being an ongoing listener to the love that is at the heart of our lives, the love that makes all things new.
> 
> "The needed thing is letting ourselves be open for Christ to fill it--and not for us to fill that space with clutter."
> 
> You probably thought we would never get to the end of this exhortative article, but we have.  Even though long, I pray that it provided you some fruitful things to mull over.
> 
> And that will do it for today's thought article.  Until tomorrow when, Lord willing another article will be posted, obviously not as long, may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul
> 
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