Room For More
by Jessica Haberkern
Recent publishing trends point to a shift in the American zeitgeist: More and more books hit the market each year aimed at clutter in our lives, calling it “stuffocating,” and preaching that tidiness is “life changing.” Has the American public reached a tipping point regarding consumerism?
We are a culture in conflict—simultaneously consuming more and more while desperately trying to trim excess from our lives. I know this obsession well. My husband and I are master minimalists. We’ve relocated to three states in five years and settled into five homes. With each move, we pared down our belongings, leaving our bed frame on a curb in Brooklyn because the thought of hauling it one more time felt absurd. (To this day, we still sleep bohemian-style on a single—albeit neatly blanketed—mattress on the floor.)
There is great freedom in owning less. But however commendable downsizing is, minimizing belongings can be equally as vain as hoarding them. Decluttering alone won’t untangle the web of problems produced by our over-stimulated society. “The joy of ditching all of our stuff is just as illusory as the joy of acquiring it all was,” says writer Pamela Druckerman in an op-ed for The New York Times. Tidying up may transform our material life, but simply removing things will never fulfill our need for more connection with God and others.
Many of our Christian predecessors—some of them ascetics—believed that minimizing external belongings conversely maximized the inward experience. The idea was that, when the material dimension was held less dear, the spiritual dimension would be encouraged to flourish.
Applied today, this means we should ditch things that don’t matter to more fully pursue things that do. For example, downscaling one’s wardrobe should ultimately displace one’s dependence on outward appearance and redirect the focus to experiencing God.
My family calls this “creating white space.” Designers use the term to describe the literal blank space between design elements, which allows the eye to clearly see what’s most important. For us, creating white space means removing distractions to spiritual, intellectual, and relational growth.
A scant wardrobe is a good start to cultivating white space, but it’s only the beginning. More important is what you do with white space created by decluttering.
