Organize me?

A 40 by 40 goal I am wrestling with has to do with organizing. Nothing new/fun/creative about that one, right? Everyone is doing it or did it already last year. I am getting to it. I just needed to buy a couple books, listen to some tapes, make a bunch more lists.

It can‘t be that hard, I see others do it, I even felt fairly organized once back in 1992. It’s been done before.

To be very honest, I am struggling. I think this one is much more than skin deep, it is connected to me in deep ways. I can't seem to let things go...

[a dining room of piles of PTA...it grows]

I am obviously quite skilled in the art of chaos. [***I typed many things here that I decided to delete because they made me feel bad]. I choose to see it as “creative clutter“ ~ that title makes me feel like a real artist that has so much creativity in her life that I have to look right past the mundane mess, it is too mundane.

[art from VBS this week...space stuffs]

Exactly the opposite is mostly true.

There are no creative breakthroughs for me when the kitchen sink is full of dishes or the house is mangled in messy matter. I can’t think about anything else. I am also blessed & cursed with the compulsive collecting of visual stimuli, the need to keep things “right at hand“, and the fixation of putting things in piles.

Piles. I read in one of those multiple organizational books that you are either a filer or you are a piler. I couldn't believe it. I had always thought I was inept? It was so reassuring to be validated about my OCD piling issue. It is real. It is good, right? It is how I roll. So, I am out of the closet about it...I am a piler.

I perused the organizational books for pages I had marked or notes I had made, here are a few I kept (I am sure you have tried them):

• Work each room in a clockwise fashion, don’t get preoccupied (now blacklisted: multi-tasking), just keep going all the way around in one room before you go to the next. I suggest loud music with this one and chocolate waiting at the doorway?
  

• Use a kitchen timer and give yourself a set time to get a task completed (15 minutes). I love this one, other than the fact it reminded me of that game where you are frantically trying to put all the little shape pieces in the right hole before the buzzing-timer goes off. It is a bit like that, your heart is racing thinking that the buzzy thing is going to go off and you can‘t think straight. It is frantic, it works for me.
  

• “If it doesn’t make you smile ~ let it go.” I think this one works great when I am in a good mood, ~ or was it a bad mood? The last thing I got rid of with this mantra was a bunch of stuff in my pantry and fridge. Hold it in your hand and try to smile...
  


• Get rid of 27 things. I believe it is based on a feng shui principle. It works, you just keep counting - don't stop until 27, and it gets you clearing things quickly (mentally,too).

• It isn't yours anymore, it is meant for someone else. This was from a Nun at the Monastery in Cottonwood Idaho. I think it works well if you have a friend in mind.
  

[boxes of pics from snapfish]

I have believed all this time that I am blessed with abundance --I just didn't know how to organize all of it.

But now I am rethinking the whole issue. How do you organize too much stuff? Is the idea of abundance a sad trick? a deceptive lie? a way to steal my life from me?

How much do I (we) really need? I may in fact be held back and being choked by my abundance. A house of plenty or a house of too much?

I loved Pastor R.’s message yesterday on this topic. He said that the world is in constant need of “more-things-stuff-wants” and that we have this false understanding that all of it somehow fills us.

When in fact it doesn’t fill anything at all.

The volume of it all just stretches out that space into an even bigger gaping hole and makes the emptiness/void even more apparent.

What hole am I feeding and stretching?

I think with organizing piles I am struggling with a physical issue, when in fact it is deeper than that. It is a spiritual issue. After all of these years of trying on my own to figure it out, I am realizing that it is going to take something much bigger and smarter than me to change this.

“He himself will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1Peter 5)

The missing part? He himself. The Almighty, all powerful, holy and full of love Creator. The Master piler (and filer). The source of all grace. He does the organizing? It says:

He himself will restore (me)
He himself will confirm (me)
He himself will strengthen (me)
He himself will establish (me)

I think I am finally realizing the huge missing piece to this organizational mess I have been living. I have been leaving the One I can't live without...out.

I will pray a different kind of prayer this time. One of faith in His restoring, changing, fixing, cleansing, confirming, building, lifting, letting go, creating, establishing, hoping miracles.

I will see myself differently through His eyes...and let him show me how to do this thing.

Divine Piles.

[school shopping piles to be washed and hung]

[bits and stuff from NYC trip]

[already piles are being formed for the next adventure]

jj