We moved recently, after living in one house for 18 years. In that house we raised three children, from toddlerhood to adulthood. In that house my wife and I lost our youth: the mirror in the bathroom hung there the entire time, but the faces looking back at us grew creased and worn. In that house, we grieved and laughed, ate and slept, prayed and argued, mowed grass and shoveled snow, painted all the walls at least once, and – here's the point – accumulated nearly two decades of treasure: books and CDs and DVDs (ask your parents), ornaments and earthenware, children's awards and projects, cards and letters and photos and copies of National Geographic.
It was surprising how much stuff the place could hold.
And then we moved, and with that the task of sorting through all the stuff was thrust upon us, and with that a fundamental disparity between my personality and my wife's came fast to the surface.
I am a sentimentalist. Every card my wife ever gave me, every piece of art my children ever created, every meaningful letter I ever received—all to me is holy relic.
That house was my reliquary.
My wife, not so much. She is—let me be kind—a pragmatist. A hard-nosed, steely-eyed, ruthless, unfeeling pragmatist. I say this lovingly. She would pitch the whole load and not blink.
I am a sentimentalist. My wife is a pragmatist. A hard-nosed, steely-eyed, ruthless pragmatist. I say this lovingly.
All to say, the next few weeks of packing the house were interesting. She took two tacks: eliminate cartloads of stuff when I wasn't around on the assumption that I'd never notice it missing; and, with stuff she guessed I might notice missing, pile it all in a box for me to render a final verdict on.
This second tactic didn't go well for her. I did relinquish the odd piece of bric-a-brac, but that was only a ploy to keep all the rest. Out of every metric ton, I dispensed with a few pounds, maybe mere ounces.
The moving bill was whopping. They charge by the metric ton. When we got to our new, much smaller, place, there just wasn't enough room. So I did then what I should have done earlier: I de-cluttered. I had to pay to move it, and then had to pay to toss it.
But it is amazing how lovely simplicity is.
This whole story is both a confession and a metaphor. The confession I've already given. The metaphor is this: as in the natural, so in the spiritual. I have a habit of accumulating habits. I have a commitment to taking on commitments.
I have a pathology of saying yes.
Each little thing seems manageable in and of itself. I have room, time, energy. Yes, yes, yes. It's the accumulation of all the little yeses that kills me: days crammed with scores of obligations, none of which by itself is burdensome. But the whole? A mountain I scramble up, an ocean I flounder in, a forest I stumble through.
Things I should enjoy I end up resenting.
I was whining to my wife about this the other day. She seemed less than sympathetic. "Who made you say yes?"
So I made a decision. I decided to give her, with her pragmatism, the final verdict on my extra commitments. She gets to choose what I keep and what I throw away. She has veto power. She has power of attorney.
Last week, she told me three speaking requests she was declining on my behalf. I winced. I began to protest. She looked at me, steely-eyed. I flinched, whimpered a little, and backed down.
But I'm looking now at my calendar for the coming months. It's amazing how lovely simplicity is.
Mark Buchanan teaches pastoral theology at Ambrose Seminary in Calgary, Alberta.
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