The library has three or four copies, but even then, I had to go on a long waiting list. Finally -- after about three months -- my copy was available.
The author of this particular book has a very extreme approach. Some have (shockingly, perhaps) compared it to anorexia. Having unnecessary or unlovely items around her is a great burden on her mind. Any sort of untidiness has always so disturbed her peace that she began seeking perfect order in her family home at the age of five; her search for perfect, pure order has remained a passion throughout her life. She began with trying to find the perfect way to store her belongings, then she had an awakening -- she didn't need most of her belongings.
I'm not saying there aren't things in her method that are very helpful -- there are. But in general I do not at all subscribe to her view of life. At one point I began to notice that her extreme quest for tidiness has all the earmarks of an extreme quest for inner peace -- yet she apparently believes we can achieve inner peace through manipulating our external world. She speaks in very emotional, almost mystical terms of the deep satisfaction her clients experience when they complete their purging process (done systematically over a number of months) and are left with a home sanctuary, containing only the things they love having around them.
There are two things about this that strike me. One, this is a very "first world problem." Some of her clients have so many clothes, they can give or throw away dozens of garbage bags full of clothing and still have a lovely wardrobe. But the main thing that strikes me about this method, and this person, is that her extreme approach is a substitute search for God. A search for holiness, in a sense. A search for something whole and perfect, to fill our brokenness.
My home will never be extremely tidy. I hope, with the Lord's help, and likely even using a tidbit or two from this book, to make it tidier. But the "extreme tidiness" I seek myself is to be remade in the image of my perfect, wonderful, joyful, wise and utterly righteous Saviour. Only His own Holy Spirit can perform this transformation, as I cooperate with Him through faith, obedience, and praise.
In the end, no quest through human means can ever bring people to true peace. The only quest for peace that means anything to God is saying "yes" to His open arms, then continuing to do so day by day, giving Him access to the clutter within us. His goal is not just to tidy, but to replace our mess with His remarkable loveliness, and our unrest with His perfect peace.
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“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity |