At the end of each summer, our part of town celebrates “stuff” – Grandma’s unwanted china, T-shirts, board games. Odds and ends that fill closets, attics and garages. Technically, it is the annual Niles Antique Faire and Flea Market. Over time, it has become an area-wide yard sale. People wander by with backpacks, bags, strollers and wagons, searching for treasure. Treasure is unique to each shopper and thus the hunt.

It is a festive time with huge crowds and street fare to tide them over. I often find at least one thing that I can’t live without. Last year, it was a small wooden carved figure meant to keep one’s hands occupied in the same way you would use worry beads. It is strangely comforting and meaningful, since it was something a friend brought back from her travels. 

This year it was a stool. I really can’t help myself. 

As I try to resist the quest for the ideal thing, and as I note that most of the garage sales just look like the inside of my garage, I am warming to the idea of simplicity.

Having stuff means having to manage stuff. This takes time and energy, and in the process, stuff management can take over your life. Self-help abounds as people struggle to downsize. The Kondo method of decluttering your home has tapped a shared desire for order with a book and Netflix series featuring Marie Kondo. Type “simple living” into any search engine and dozens of blogs, articles and inspirations pop up. The dozens of yard sales in my neighborhood this weekend are a testament to everyone’s desire to get rid of stuff. 

Looking beyond my own garage, I am struck by the idea that simplicity really should be free from process. Simplicity in life is not about cleaning out closets and owning fewer purses or books or whatever but about trusting God with the details of life. Simplicity is letting go of the need to maintain and hold on to stuff and placing God’s priorities above all else.

In an article about the discipline of simplicity, Richard J. Foster writes, “The inward reality of simplicity involves a life of joyful unconcern for possessions. . . It has nothing to do with abundance or possessions or their lack. It is an inward spirit of trust.” 

My tendency to make every idea a project, however, can convert even the simple into complex. If I am cleaning a closet, I wonder if I need better boxes or baskets. I seek practical guides and checklists. Voila! Complicated simplicity is born. 

Getting wrapped up in how to embrace simplicity is different from a joyful unconcern for possessions. It can become a project, and pretty soon, the Kondo method becomes our religion. 

And so I wonder, is simplicity even possible in this society?
In what ways do you currently practice simplicity in your life? And in what ways would you like to live more simply?

What truly makes letting go and living simply difficult for you? 

Pondering…