Making Room for God
Decluttering and the Spiritual Life
by Mary Elizabeth Sperry
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Pub Date Feb 02 2018 | Archive Date Apr 05 2018
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Description
If cleanliness is next to godliness, do our closets have anything to say about the state of our souls?
Decluttering became trendy with the 2014 release of Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. And while there’s no shortage of secular books promoting the practice, Making Room for God is the first book on organization from a Catholic perspective. Self-proclaimed pack rat Mary Elizabeth Sperry will help you make decluttering a prayerful, peace-filled, and soul-expanding experience.
Popular Catholic speaker and Bible expert Mary Elizabeth Sperry explores the relationship between our stuff and Catholic beliefs about grace, sin, repentance, prayer, and the common good. She boldly affirms the goodness of our stuff and of God’s abiding presence in the worldly goods all around us. She also reminds us of how sin can distort our relationships, including the ones we have with our possessions. Through spiritual disciplines—especially prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—we can protect this relationship so that we own our possessions but they don’t own us.
Making Room for God offers an enticing and entertaining approach to decluttering, discipleship, and the spiritual life that makes tidying up seem almost fun. Writing from an unabashedly Catholic perspective and with convincing practicality, Sperry looks at the role of material goods in the life of a follower of Jesus. Each chapter includes humorous and often self-deprecating details of the author’s own journey through decluttering to help us believe that we, too, can simplify. Alongside these adventures are Sperry’s rich spiritual insights gleaned from extensive knowledge of the Church’s tradition and helpful exercises for freeing ourselves from clutter and the temptation to sin it so often harbors.
Sperry draws liberally from the Bible, liturgy, Fathers of the Church, lives of the saints, and Church teaching—especially that of Pope Francis—as she explores the relationship between our stuff and our spiritual lives. Practical elements offer a step-by-step approach to decluttering living spaces, getting rid of unused and excess items, and limiting future accumulation.
Features & Benefits
This is the first book on organization and simplifying/tidying that combines this popular trend with practical teaching from a Catholic perspective.Mary Elizabeth Sperry speaks at a variety of venues, including the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, Mid-Atlantic Congress, Dallas Ministry Conference, and the New York Catholic Bible Summit. She has appeared on NBC Nightly News, NPR, Relevant Radio, EWTN, and Busted Halo.The book includes reflection questions appropriate for individual journaling or group discussion.A Note From the Publisher
The author of five books, Sperry’s articles have appeared in publications including Give Us This Day, Liguorian, Emmanuel, and Today’s Parish Minister. She speaks about the Bible and a variety of spiritual topics in dioceses and parishes throughout the United States and has been interviewed on National Public Radio, EWTN Radio, CBS Radio, Relevant Radio, and SiriusXM. Sperry earned a master’s degree in liturgical studies from Catholic University of America and a master’s degree in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has bachelor’s degrees in international politics, Russian, and economics.
She lives in the Washington, DC, area.
Advance Praise
“Mary Sperry shows us how to place our physical and mental clutter into the context of our spiritual lives as followers of Christ. More than a how-to book, Making Room for God offers Sperry’s expertise on scripture and the teachings of the Church as organic elements of her writing. Her purpose is to not only save us money and time but also save our souls. By sharing her own journey with wit and humility, Sperry becomes our companion for a process that can be overwhelming yet rewarding because it’s life-changing. This book will revolutionize your life. Let it help you take your stewardship of God’s gifts seriously. I really love this book!”
Lisa M. Hendey
Founder of CatholicMom.com and author of The Grace of Yes
“Mary Sperry’s purifying confessions and practical suggestions about what we can do to make room for God and others by decluttering should be required reading for every Christian seeking to make the world a better place. Too much stuff is a spiritual problem that Sperry’s wisdom can help us deal with, manage, and in the end overcome.”
Sr. Rose Pacatte, F.S.P.
Author of Martin Sheen: Pilgrim on the Way
“With wit, wisdom, and warmth, Mary Sperry offers us some of the best practical and spiritual advice on how to clear out the clutter of our closets—and our lives.”
Deacon Greg Kandra
Blogger and journalist at Aleteia
“Making Room for God is a spiritual challenge that will lead you to holier, healthier habits for relating to your possessions, to an interior conversion, and to a deeper relationship with God.”
Michele Faehnle and Emily Jaminet
Authors of Divine Mercy for Moms
“In Making Room for God, Mary Sperry offers something most of us desperately need by expertly walking us through the practical side of decluttering and simplifying our lives. But she does so much more than demonstrate how to organize our sock drawers and kitchen cabinets. By acknowledging that the spiritual touches each part of our lives, no matter how small, Sperry guides the reader through an examination of the heart. While our worldly goods may be a mess it’s our souls that need the real spring cleaning and this little book is ready to guide you through each step.”
Haley Stewart
Catholic writer, speaker, podcaster, and blogger at Carrots for Michaelmas
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781594717970 |
| PRICE | $14.95 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
Elizabeth L, Reviewer
I love how the author intertwined decluttering our home life and surrounding with decluttering our spiritual connection. She carried this thread throughout and I really connected with both of these subjects. Although I feel I have a pretty good handle on keeping my home organized and holding myself accountable for periodic decluttering, I definitely can benefit from focusing on connecting with God more often and keeping the distractions of daily life from invading that relationship.
I thought that the author’s tone was very down to earth (what I most enjoy) and that she was including herself in the all-to-familiar struggle with structuring her environment and spiritual life, so I feel like she was very relatable.
Just at the point where I thought, “Okay, you live alone with a dog. What about us who have kids destroying our progress every second of the day?” She addressed this issue with practical ways to involve the little progress-destroyers in the clean-up!
Janet P, Reviewer
I really liked that this book takes a thoroughly Catholic approach to the idea of decluttering. So many books on this subject seem to give you the impression that putting things away, putting together a system, or accepting their vision will turn your life perfect, Happily this book accepts our flawed nature and puts decluttering within the context of creating a good Christian life.
In doing so it added a dimension that I always found missing in organization books.
I also liked that Sperry was so up front about her own struggles with buying and clutter control. I also liked that she was realistic about the way we'll fail in the process and that she took time to show us how decluttering, while helpful, is not a perfect analogy for our spiritual growth.
In spite of all this goodness, I thought it fell flat in one area. She takes a chapter to broaden her arguments and relates them to Pope Francis' controversial environmental encyclical and to many politically correct and possibly dubious social justice concerns. I would have liked to see this section either shortened or to be more thoughtful instead of reflecting the party line.
Even so the book was great and I have already started my decluttering process.
Lisa S, Reviewer
G.K. Chesterton once wrote: 'There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.' These are extremely wise words for pack rats, and Mary Elizabeth Sperry's book will not only help you to declutter. It will also help you to desire less.
Some early Church Fathers, such as Saint Anthony, escaped from the Roman Empire, to live ascetic lives and become closer to God. They owned nothing and ate very little. This was partly because they wanted to separate themselves from attachment to material possessions so that they could become closer to God. As Sperry writes, they were the true forerunners of today's minimalists.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines sin as 'failure in genuine love for God and neighbour caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods'. (CCC, 1849) (Buddhism states that misery is caused by attachment). Possessions can separate us from God and from other people. Sperry explains how and why this is so, and combines the spiritual advantages and reasons for decluttering and gives practical tips in this well-written book. She writes about spiritual discipline, gratitude and generosity as well as how sins, such as envy, can lead to accumulating more 'stuff'. There are exercises at the end of each chapter to help.
I also found Sperry's struggles with her own clutter similar to mine, and rather endearing. For example, she sometimes has to look through several cabinets and drawers to find a utensil. She also almost lost a job opportunity because the offer got mixed up with the spam! It was good to read this, and know that I am not alone!
This is highly recommended for Catholics, or indeed, any Christians who feel that they need a more spiritual approach to getting rid of clutter.
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