Spiritualize One Space in Your Life

Practice of the Week
Spiritualize One Space in Your Life

Whether or not you'd agree that "cleanliness is next to Godliness," the spaces we inhabit do have spiritual significance. Uncluttered space makes our spirits more at ease, more ready for joy.

While spiritual growth involves accepting things exactly as they are -- loving what is -- it also, at the same time, orients our attention and action toward what is most needful in human life: justice, for one; beauty, for another. Spiritual deepening includes increased appreciation for beauty and simplicity, and an increased interest in facilitating the creation of simple beauty. Decluttering is a spiritual exercise in attending to simple beauty in the space where you spend a lot of your life.

Marie Kondo's international bestseller, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, offers a way to see cleaning up clutter in a new light. It’s not about eliminating mess; it’s about letting in joy and creating space in which our spirits can breathe.

Kondo challenges us: “Anything that doesn’t 'spark joy' is to be touched, thanked, and ceremonially sent on its way!”

Read the article about her book (and maybe read the book as well!): Top Tips to Joyfully Declutter Your Home, from Marie Kondo

Then:

• Pick one “space” in your life and declutter it in the way Kondo recommends. This space can be something as big as a living room or as small as a desk drawer or the back seat of your car.
• Take before-and-after pictures.

In your journal, write about what it was like to thank and send the clutter on its way. What was it like to have one space full of the things that “spark joy” and prop you up?

Before

After

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For list of all weekly practices: "Spiritual Practice Directory"