Living in Clutter
by KeithThis morning, I awoke and turned to my lovely wife and asked her what time she got to bed last night and what she had been working on.
She said she was writing a BLOG. She was turned away from me when she said it was titled “Living in Color” I heard “Living in Clutter” and so after a short laugh at ourselves, I got the inspiration for my first ever blog post.
I get up this morning to gather the kids together and get them breakfast. Yes, this is my only day to sleep in, but my wife got to bed at 4:00 am after writing her blog and I’ll try to give her a few extra winks.
After clearing a small space in the junk mail, I consume my breakfast. Returning to my bedroom, I can’t find my computer to start my blog. I’ve got no idea where it is, and can’t even see it as my wife points to it on the love seat in the living room. It wasn’t even buried, just camouflaged with some other gear deposited there.
I ensconce myself on my half of the bed where I sit down to write. The kids come in and tell me that there is someone at the door. I twist my ankle getting to the door, and wonder why in the world is my bicycle pump located next to my bed? Did I put that there? Must not be enough room in the garage.
The visitors are from the North Valley Baptist Church. They have no idea what pain they have caused me, but I don’t blame my injury on God, rather it is my own fault. I like how their church has really cool fireworks over it. How do they do that? Photoshop? Well, our congregation has so much fireworks going on inside we don’t need the artificial kind.
Returning to my safe half of the bed, I surf instead of write. I run across a trailer for the new Pixar movie WALL E. This looks really great. I love how the future is depicted with lots of junk to play with, but not much evidence of humans… Seems about right. This movie trailer definitely tips its hat to one of my favorite movies, Silent Running.
I ask the kids what they think about the main Silent Running actor going off the deep end to save trees. Then I ask them if that isn’t what we do when we preserve national forest parklands for future generations. If we don’t sell the timber to build houses for people that are dying because of lack of housing, aren’t we guilty of letting people die in order to preserve forests?
Back to WALL E, I like how the spaceship has to break out through a layer of satellites in low orbit to leave the planet. Nice touch I thought and also causing me to think about clutter in space.
All NASA spacecraft, and I’ll assume military payloads as well, must have a way to re-enter them into the planet’s atmosphere so that residual rocket fuel doesn’t blow them up into small pieces of shrapnel orbiting at high velocity that would be dangerous to humans and spacecraft.
I wonder if other people feel the same sort of walls are closing in on them feelings as their clutter fills their modest Silicon Valley square footage. Luckily, we can get out into reserved open spaces and I’ve taken every opportunity to do that recently.
As I have tried to learn how to identify more tree types, I’ve been amazed at how diverse our forests actually are. They seem much more diverse than the forests in Oregon. I wonder if there is such a thing as clutter in a forest? Well, of course there is, and it is cured by fire. Maybe that is why we are limited to only about 70+/- 30 years to roam the earth as humans. It keeps the clutter down.
Maybe if we got rid of more of our stuff, and reduced buying so much, we could provide more housing and food to others we share our planet with. If we are to be like Jesus, shouldn’t we go lightly on the planet?
In case you haven’t been watching for signs from the heavens, notice the news of little comet HOLMS, which brightened 14 magitudes overnight and extends to 1/4 degree in the sky (half the diameter of the moon or sun). Now, that is one of the most bizarre astronomical sights of this era. Maybe a sign to clean house.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Whew, I was a little worried. I thought when I saw the title of this post that you were writing about my office!
You know far more about space, comets, satellites and all that than I do, but I hear that the skies are getting cluttered. I think about that once in a while and I wonder what a Christian Worldview says about such things.
I also wonder about the clutter in my own life — not just my office, but in my heart, my mind, my time and my soul. Undoubtedly a little less “living in clutter” would be a good thing.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:34 am
I’m not worried; I KNOW he’s writing about my office. Who can argue with the idea that it would be nice to live without clutter? But I’ll make a tiny stab at it.
Whether clutter is construed as a positive or negative element depends on what it is. Sure, if the clutter makes you stumble and twist your ankle, it gets a big
But if the clutter adds value, then is it really clutter?
For example, a solid-colored blouse is pretty boring, but if that same shirt has added tailoring or embellishments of embroidery, buttons, or patterned printing, it can be a knockout. If the thoughts floating through my head and heart are constructive and encouraging, I’ll want them to stick around, and I’ll even want to add to the stockpile.
The real issue for me is organization, my lack of it, that is. Can I keep my valuable clutter contained in a way that is helpful, not hurtful? Can I actually get to what I need when I need it, or is too much in the way? Is my clutter so much of a “treasure” that it keeps me from dwelling on things of even more value?
January 17th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Einstein said something to the effect, everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
As for me, I prefer simple. My office, however, does not agree.
At one point does our Christian attitudes become cluttered with too much reasoning and not enough faith or too much feeling and not enough sense?
How can we determine that we are following God fully but not too much?
Can our Christian walk become cluttered with ‘service’ and ‘witness’ and ‘activities’?
January 20th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I don’t see how we can follow God “too much.” Did Jesus follow God too much? Death is a radical thing to go through for someone, but we’re called to die to ourselves every day to follow Jesus.
Once Jesus got going in his ministry, his life was full of
service—making wine, feeding crowds, healing and resurrecting people
witness—speaking in the synagogue, talking to individuals like the Samaritan woman, wrangling with the Pharisees and Sadducees
activities—storytelling, traveling, visiting friends, eating and drinking with sinners
So, yeah, I think our lives should be full of those things. Our lives should also be arranged so that we can take care of our families properly. Before he died, Jesus appointed a caretaker for his mother. We should also relax/refresh as needed. Jesus slept, went off alone to pray, and observed the Sabbath.
I think the real question is what are we living FOR?