Clearing the Clutter

Summer is well under way, and we're enjoying its bounty here in Mason. Nineteen of our amazing youth and three adult advisors and I spent a fantastic week up at Camp Greenwood for Serve Week . . . the choir celebrated the end of the year with a festive picnic on a beautiful early summer evening . . . the Session and Deacons enjoyed a casual potluck dinner on a hotter night with some really yummy food . . . several dozen among us enjoyed each other's company as they watched the Lugnuts trounce the Quad Cities River Bandits (I wanted to be there too, but was at home nursing a fever) . . . twenty-two children, eleven teenage helpers, and three counselors descended upon the church for our Greenwood Day Camp . . . various groups have been meeting to begin making plans for fall programming . . . Sheren and Lori and I have all been extremely grateful for the air conditioning in our offices . . . and I've been enjoying the freedom that comes from a less-demanding schedule than what we have during the program year.  It's given me time to work on clearing the clutter in my office.

Ah, clutter.  Why is it that our offices and our homes seem to be so full of it?  Why is it that every time we clean one pile, another pile appears?

I've been finding all sorts of things in my office that I set aside over the course of the past year because I didn't have time to deal with them then.  Catalogs . . . magazines . . . notes that I had written to myself about things that needed to be done . . . various documents of a historical nature (we keep finding interesting treasures buried in boxes and files) . . . brochures . . . articles . . . artwork . . . worship resources . . . committee reports and minutes . . . projects that had been started and then set aside . . . insurance information . . . books that I want to find time to read . . . letters . . . spiritual gifts inventories . . . unfinished job descriptions . . . and more.  With each item I uncover, there are two key questions I have to ask: (1) Is this truly important?  (2) If so, what needs to be done with it, or how should I file it?  In many cases, the answers are obvious.  In many other cases, the answers are not obvious at all.

Clearing out the clutter in our lives is demanding work.  It demands time, it demands emotional energy, it demands spiritual energy.  It's draining.  And yet - the freedom that comes from a clean desk and clean shelves is tremendous.  It's a rich blessing, one to be celebrated and treasured.  The more clutter we manage to free ourselves from in our lives, the less burdened our souls are, and the more room we have in our hearts to open ourselves up to God's grace and Christ's will for our lives.

Take a look around your office, your home, your life.  Where is your soul burdened by too much clutter?  I'm talking not only about the material clutter in our lives - the physical piles that accumulate - but also the emotional and spiritual clutter that pervades our lives and weighs heavily on our souls.  What do we really not need in our lives?  What is present in our lives that - if it were gone - would bring us feelings of peace and freedom?  Can we imagine a life for ourselves that is less burdened by clutter - and can we will ourselves to do the work we need to do to get rid of the clutter?

I've been spending many hours clearing the clutter in my office.  As I write these words, I'm not done yet.  I've got quite a number of piles yet to go.  But it is so freeing.  Every time I clear out a pile, or I recover part of a shelf or a portion of my desk, or accomplish that task that I've been putting off for weeks or months, it feels so good.  Cleansing.  Refreshing.  Even healing, in a way.

My hope and prayer is that by the time our program year starts up in the fall, I'll have cleared out the clutter in my office.  There may still be some unfinished projects that need to be worked on - several of my piles have to do with laborious tasks that certain committees have been working on for a while now, and there is still more work that needs to be done.  Those might not get resolved by mid-September.  But much of the clutter in my office . . . maybe I'll be successful.  I've got a good fighting chance.  I just need to muster up the will to keep at it.

It feels so good . . . it feels so good. . . .

Peace and blessings,

Bill