The Holiness of Enough

How much is enough?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? How much is enough?

If you’ve read anything on the minimalism or simplicity movements, you know that a core question of those who espouse a minimalist lifestyle is “how much is enough”?. How much stuff is enough? How many pairs of jeans, or pairs of shoes, or bags or coats are enough? How much food is enough in your pantry? your freezer? How big a house do you need? How big a car? How many cars? How many books?

Or another question our consumer-driven society prefers to ask, “You can never have enough, right?”

It’s not a new question: numerous people are asking that question, seeking to know just how much stuff is enough. If you’ve any doubt, just look at the success of Marie Kondo, her books and her Netflix show. Look at the proliferation of “gurus” who will advise us on whittling away, paring down, making do - it’s the question of the age: How much is enough?

Last year during the early days of the pandemic, I encountered the new (for me) and disturbing reality of shortages for the first time in my experience, at least since the gas shortages of the 1970’s. Never before had I seen empty meat cases in the grocery store; no chicken, no beef, no pork. No flour, no sugar. No yeast. (Seriously, a yeast shortage?) The bread aisle sparse, lacking in “my favorite” bread; my particular brand of roll unavailable. Never mind the paper goods aisle that was just empty shelves: no paper towels, no toilet paper. It gave me an empty feeling in my gut, .. anxiety, worry. For us, gratefully, it wasn’t an issue of money: we had the money - there just were very few things to buy.

Before the pandemic, having enough had really never been an issue for me in my daily life; there was always enough - in fact, always MORE than enough. I was spoiled; “fat dumb and happy” as the saying goes. And in surveying those empty store shelves, I came to realize just what my grandparents and my parents had dealt with as post-Depression-era adults. My grandmother who saved the thread from dresses or pants that needed to be altered, carefully undoing a seam, re-using the same thread to re-sew a hem. My mother saving every paper bag, every plastic bag; canning all summer and fall from my father’s prolific garden, never more satisfied than when she surveyed her canning room (yes - a room!) filled to the rafters with canned tomatoes, beets, pickles, peaches; or a chest freezer filled with frozen beans and corn; with a half-cow’s worth of beef. I’d never known want. I just didn’t know.

Heidi Baker is a missionary who has worked with orphaned children and the poverty-stricken in Mozambique and other countries in Africa since the early 1980’s. Her stories of miracle-provision are amazing and legendary, as are, tragically, the stories of want, starvation, cruelty, and disease. She has become a much loved “Mama” among the people in that area of the world, and her and her husband’s ministry, Iris Ministries, has saved thousands of children from sure death due to starvation and disease. She wrote a book a few years ago; I’ve read it a few times: “Always Enough”. It recounts the heartache of hunger and disease and poverty, yes; but also the astounding miracles of healing and provision that happened in the mission field; pots of oatmeal or soup that never ran dry, boxes of bibles that never emptied, regardless of how many thousands of children showed up. She knows. God always provides. There is always enough.

Perhaps it is those who struggle to survive each and every day who understand, soul-deep, the concept of enough, who can best embrace the sacred knowledge of a God Who provides the sufficient abundance of “enough”, a God Who blesses in a vast array of experience and heart-touches of joy far beyond the confines of a thing that sits, inanimate on a shelf, or tucked away in a closet.

There is holiness in “enough”. There is contentment in being able to survey the majority of your “things” in a eye-sweep of your home, your heart able to mentally mark each item that gives joy, each thing that sparks a cherished memory, a smile, a thing well-loved and used. There is a sanctity in whittling down the excess of too many things, of consciously acknowledging the holiness of “enough”, in turning to the calm peace of holding only a few precious things in my hands, and letting go of the rest.

I still struggle with just how much is enough. I still whittle away at my books, at my boxes of yarn, my bins of quilting fabric. I hang on to my mother’s knitting and sewing supplies - even the tatting bobbins and hairpin lace looms that I don’t know how to use; her 1950’s knitting pattern books that I’ll never knit (who even wears a hand-knit suit anymore? - never mind one with a 20-inch waisted skirt!) I still struggle with not being able to part with certain never-worn jewelry, or my china, or my collection of depression glass. Just how much is enough? When will I know?

I’m not sure just when I’ll know, but I will continue to ask, “how much is enough?” It’s a process, and I intend to keep on whittling down, winnowing out; keep on asking, keep on thinking about - just how much is enough. I will continue to clean out a closet, or a cupboard, or a bin of yarn or fabric. I will keep decluttering that bookshelf, the pantry, the kitchen cabinet. Because in the end, I don’t want my things to control me, to overwhelm and take over — not only my physical space but my emotional space as well. I want the holiness of enough to be my guide.

In the end, I won’t be able to take it with me, for sure and certain. In the end, what I own or how much I own won’t matter. No one will care about the size of my house, or my yarn stash, or my savings account.

What will matter is what I leave behind; not my things, but my love; not my stuff, but a legacy of giving and caring.

Perhaps I already know the answer to the question.

Just enough. That’s how much.