De-cluttering seems rather fashionable. I am told there are consultants who come into the home and help people simplify both the material priorities of life and the processes of domestic organisation.

Many of us are natural hoarders, and I am one of the worst! Moving house is a very salutary experience. It compels us to confront our possessions and, as a consequence, our priorities. Why do we try to hang on to things that are utterly useless or, at best, extraneous to our needs? Many of us find security in surrounding ourselves with things to which we are attached, things which often have their own beauty or signify a special relationship.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with that. The problem intensifies when those things that are really special become swamped or lost by the critical mass of possessions which are surplus to a reasonable requirement for material and emotional comfort. Too much can be as dangerous as too little.

A relocation brings to light the clutter we have accumulated, and the difficult question of what to do with it. Some of it is worthless to man or beast and the solution is a simple one. More landfill!

More problematic is the superflux we possess that may well be of use to someone (and even to us if we had room for it and a need for it). Well, thank God for the Salvos, and for Vinnies and Anglicare and all the other op shops around the place. They will help us salve our over-consuming consciences and take our extraneous possessions, but even these charities report that they are groaning under the weight of 'donations', many of which should really go to the tip, but we lack the courage to make that decision, or resent paying the fee to rid ourselves of our excesses.

In the week of Ash Wednesday, we begin the six weeks of Lent which take us to Easter. It is a time for reflection, for stripping back, de-cluttering; a time to acknowledge that there are priorities and problems that have simply become buried under the mountain of stuff, the false priorities, that occupy our lives, one way or another.

The discipline of Lent has become trivialised, we might give up chocolate and think that is all there is to it. Self-denial causes us to reflect on those things of which there is too much, which obscure and crowd out the real things of life, our priorities at home, in relationship, with our loved ones and those we cannot love. What do we do to redress the balance, to get our crowded lives back on a more even keel? These things are a function too of our relationship with God and the whole creation

Perhaps this season of Lent provides us with a much-needed focus. How can we simplify our lives so as to manage better the things that really matter? The temptations are strong to drown the real challenges of our life in too much busyness. The desert places can be very confronting yet very fertile. There, we are stripped of distraction and we have nothing to meet but our barest needs and those parts of our souls that need de-cluttering.

The good news is that we don't need to move house to do it.

Christopher Welsh
T: 02 6260 9762 (w)
T: 02 6206 6806 (h)