Early next year we will have a garage sale. We already have some items from an earlier effort to raise some funds on Trademe. However, more items are always welcome. While the garage sale is indeed a fund-raising opportunity, it is also an encouragement to think about some of the clutter we may have amassed in our lives and to consider what we can let go. That does start with material goods. What are the things that we can really do without, that clutter our houses more than making it a home? Now and then a decision to part with something will be hard, and on the odd occasion we might even regret it later, but letting go can at times be also quite freeing.

That such decluttering starts with our possessions is good, but we may also consider how else we might declutter our lives. How can we live more simply? Do we really need to do more?  Yes, such decluttering in our lives will mean missing out on some things, but it may give us the opportunity to focus on the essential; to not rush from one activity to the next, or from one project to the next, but rather to be grateful for what we are involved in.

There has long been a Christian discipline of taking stock at certain times and considering our attachment to material goods. In part that was what the Advent fast was about in previous centuries. At a time of heightened commercialism, such a discipline allows us to view life more broadly.