In Making Room for God: Decluttering and the Spiritual Life, Mary Elizabeth Sperry provides more than just practical tips and advice on how to declutter – although she does a great job of that, too! Ms. Sperry takes it to the next level and does what others who write about organization and minimalism do not do – gets to the “root” of the problem behind our clutter and overabundance of material things. It’s great to know how to organize and minimize our lifestyle, but if we don’t understand where the problem comes from, how can our hearts and minds be transformed so true change can happen?
Ms. Sperry invites us to reflect on our relationship with our possessions and whether that relationship is healthy – in the spiritual sense. As she explains, the issue is not our things, but whether they keep us from living out God’s purpose for our life. She affirms the goodness in all of God’s creation, including materials things, and encourages us to analyze our relationships with these things. She invites us to ask ourselves, “Do the things I own bring me closer to God or push me further away?”
Ms. Sperry explores how using the gifts we’ve been given in the sacraments, such as reconciliation, provide a restorative way to mend our hearts and heal our souls in our journey to develop the right relationship with our possessions. She also beautifully explores how to incorporate prayer into the decluttering process and correlates how difficulty in our prayer life relates to our struggle with decluttering.
She takes an honest look at how sin, such as envy, infects the relationship we have with our possessions, and how our distrust in God may also be a factor in our struggle with clutter. In a world and society which promotes self-reliance and independence, our possessions (material things, money in the bank, etc.) can become the rock we hold onto. How unaware we are of the shaky ground we stand upon if this is true for us. We are truly safe only in the hands of God, and we should see our possessions for what they truly are, gifts from Him, not something we “own,” but something we have been given to use for His glory. Which leads me to my favorite part of this book…
In Chapter 6, “Clutter and the Common Good,” Ms. Sperry outlines what exactly the Catholic Church means by the “common good” and boldly assesses the truth of the “throwaway culture” we live in. Read with an open heart and mind, one cannot deny the truth of the state of our society, and many of our hearts, with regards to our relationship with our possessions. She breaks down the Church’s teaching on the “common good” in way that’s easy to understand, even if it’s still hard to accept for probably most in society who have way more than they need, but ironically, feel they never have enough.
The book is filled with passages from the Bible, teachings of the Catholic Church, and wisdom from the Saints. This book is a treasure for all those seeking to declutter their lives and understand the true meaning behind it all. She gives us not only guidance and tips on how to declutter, but the purpose we need to do so.
We are always either moving closer to Christ or farther away from Him, never truly standing still. Ms. Sperry, in her beautifully honest and humble words, invites us to walk with her in her journey to continually develop a God-centered relationship with material things and provides us the spiritual support, tools and guidance we need to embark on a journey to do the same.
To purchase Making Room for God: Decluttering and the Spiritual Life by Mary Elizabeth Sperry, here’s a link to her Amazon listing.
Very cool.