Clutter

I've been thinking about writing about this for several days. Recently I was talking with several friends who were in the process of removing clutter. One was downsizing to a smaller home and another in preparation for moving. When we think of clutter, we tend to think about all the physical "stuff" we own. But I've been thinking about clutter in a different aspect too. Since I started the adoption process, I have "joined" 6 chat groups specific to Russian adoption. You cannot begin to imagine the number of emails that I get related to those groups. One group I actually have to sign in and read in a general site so that does not fill up my mailbox, 3 groups I have changed my status so in order to read the emails, I have to go to the website to do so and the emails do not arrive in my inbox. Two of the groups, I don't usually get a lot of emails from and the other group tends to have quite a few emails that I never read. The other day I decided to join Facebook based on a lot of encouragement from other people. I never knew I had so many "friends" out there. :) Seriously it has been nice to hear from some people and other people I'm not sure why they want to be my friend since I barely knew them before. The jury is still out on how I feel about the new "clutter" in my life.
Another area that I seem to be experiencing a lot of clutter is the busyness of life. This summer has been almost nonstop. I am actually looking forward to slowing down as the school year begins and the summer activities end. Please don't get me wrong, I have really enjoyed all of the things we have done this summer (and the few remaining things left to do) but I am also looking forward to having quiet evenings at home where we read books, color, play babies and just enjoy being silly together.
Other things that clutter my life include time on the computer and emails. Again, I love being in contact with people and seeing how people's lives are going, especially those who adopted around the time I did, but it is amazing how much time I can spend on the computer. I recently watched a movie and in one scene a woman talks about dating and how now you have to check so many places (home answering machine, cell phone voice mail, email, MySpaces, etc.) to see if the guy had called. I find myself caught up in some aspects in the same scenario. Two months ago, I added email access on my cell phone. So not only was I paying for it on my home computer, now I was paying an additional $20 a month just so I could check to see if I had any emails. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there really was nothing that urgent that I had to see my email the minute it arrived compared to checking when I got home from work or home from a vacation or weekend away. So I cancelled the service.
At times I have to confess that watching TV or having it on for background noise can also be a clutter that I really don't need. I can honestly say, I really don't watch much TV, but the temptation can be there to allow it to be clutter. When I say watching TV it can be as simple as having the news on or a sporting event.
Lately work has been super busy and my desk always seems to be in a state of clutter. When I feel overwhelmed by the clutter on my desk or in my home, I reach a point where I just can't function until I get things back into some sense of order. The clutter is far too distracting.
In my spiritual life, the clutter can be so distracting and overwhelming that it can be difficult to hear the still, quiet voice of the Lord.
So as I go through and pack up the clothes that Natalie has outgrown and remove that clutter from the house, I am also going through and removing the "clutter" from my life so I can focus on the Lord and hear that still quiet voice.