Simplify

There is custom in Sweden called “Swedish Death Cleaning,” where a person cleans out all the excess and junk so that when they die their family is not burdened by it. There is a real pandemic in this world of hoarding, of keeping unnecessary trinkets and possessions for “just in case.” According to the Seven Deadly Sins, a manifestation of greed is to hoard material things and objects. There is a unnatural desire to hold on to a possession even when you do not look at it for years nor use it. 

Henry David Thoreau, who was not a theologian but had great wisdom on the temporal world said, “possessions possess you, they own you. A man who owns a cow is controlled by the cow because He must get up and milk it and tend to it with many hard hours,” (Walden: Economy),  and “Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them." (Walden: Economy, 1854). Thoreau wasn’t urging farmers to stop collecting milk or shirk their duties, he was making a point about possessions and how they can control your life.  The Apostle John talks about the thirst that drives us to fill our halls and homes with stuff, “For everything in the world--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--comes not from the Father but from the world. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.” (1 John 2:16). Notice there is a craving for all we see in shops (covetous, greed) and pride in the possessions we own. The motivation to hoard is then two fold a lust for the thing, shopaholicism, and the pride in the possessing of it, “I own a Tiffany & Co ring, or a vase from Ming Dynasty.” 

Hoarding then implores both lust and pride, but it also involves a type of gluttony. Instead of giving your objects to a donation company or to give it to someone you love that will use it and wants it, you hold it in your treasury like a dragon sleeping on a mount of gold coins. Gluttony is a traditional sense is to eat to such excess that it deprives and starves others; that the food could go to those who need it more. Hoarding is the gluttony of possessions, to hang on to pieces of material things that you so not use, enjoy and may not look at for years when they could be used by people who really need them. For example you have twenty blenders, collecting dust and there is a family in your neighborhood or town who needs s blender to make shakes for diabetic family member.  Bit what about the less practical stuff like a gold statue of Spider-Man or trading cards? Well while your golden spidey collects dust, somewhere is s kid who loves the Wall-Crawler and would love the statue for his or her room to look at as they read comics and play games. 

Thoreau said regarding possesions, “Simplify, Simplify, Simplify.” (Walden). Many in our Church History have endeavored to simplify and remove the superfluous stuff such as the Puritans, Pietists, Cistercians, and Moravians. These brothers and sisters in Christ in their day revolted against materialism and sought to remove the Gothic hoarding of statues and symbols and sought a more clean and simplified chapel and home. For some it may seem austere, and barren, but rather than emulate the extreme rejection of things, I say be inspired by the lack of needing tons of stuff. If you like Gothic and busy architecture and designs for your home, there is nothing wrong with that. The issue isn’t the possessions you use, but what is accumulating and covered in dust that you should get rid of or donate. 

The best advice for combating hoarding: 

1. if it breaks, throw it out. 
2. If you haven ‘t used it in two years, donate it or throw it away. 
3. When you get something new, like a piece of jewelry or clothing get rid of one you never wear, sell it or gift it or donate. 
4. If items have sentimental value take pictures of them and put it in album, keeping only the one or teo things you want to have as heirlooms. 
5. Contemplate when you are buying if you will really use it or is it an impulse buy. 
6. When you feel the desire to buy leave the store, often you will feel the frenzy feeling go spend leave, if it lingers, wait three days and if you still feel compelled and have thought it over, then buy it. 
7. Budget. Give yourself a strict budget for fun money and stick to it when shopping. 
8. Assess the motivation for buying, is it for status, to show of or for your own personal enjoyment. 
9. Remember that some of the old trinkets around your home once felt like feverish buy that you must have and now they’ve lost their luster. 
10. Remember that resell is normally only 1/4 of what you paid, you spent a 100 Euro or $100, it will sell for 10 or twenty Euro or dollars. The idea that it is collector’s item is a lie, there will be twenty to fifty of those same rare collector’s items to compete with on eBay.                         [Suggestions come from my own experiences and hoarding advice] 

The Apostle Paul tells us that to be mature Christians we must do the following, “yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ. Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you.” (Philippians 3:8, 15). The most important thing is your relationship with the Lord Jesus. The possessions of this earth will pass away in fire (2 Peter 3) and all we shall carry into the New Jerusalem is our faith and relationship with the Holy Trinity, our memories, and the people we know who are fellow Christians. I am not saying you cannot enjoy things of this earth, but spending an undue amount of time chasing all that we see and coveting it is a waste of time. In the end none of the tea cups, jewelry, sports cars, suites, dresses, mansions, and etc can come with you to heaven, but instead put your focus on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) who is everlasting to everlasting and who had mansions focus in heaven (John 14:2 KJV) and who told us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21). Make Christ your treasure and let that relationship with all the love and joy and truth eclipse the need to build our own golden mosaic Hagie Sophias. Amen.