Maybe our daughter ought to change careers. To be sure, her talents suit nicely the publishing business in which she works now. But Emily has other gifts that can sometimes surprise even us, her parents.

Last week, she demonstrated dazzling skills in the role of what used to be called efficiency expert but what we might now dub “clutter consultant.”

Home to celebrate Christmas, New Year’s Day, and her 27th birthday with us, our daughter took it upon herself to set our household straight.

That meant embarking on the monumental job of throwing out a wide variety of stuff no longer useful to us. For that she ransacked our small house from top to bottom. Before leaving town, this enterprising young woman initiated a clearing-out process that has transformed our place, at least for now.

First, she bought us a shredding machine and reduced to pieces the paper records that should have been thrown out years ago. For a time, our new shredder was as busy as it might have been in federal government offices during the Iran-Contra scandal.

Though getting rid of the paper pleased me, I find a certain irony in yet another use of technology: it accomplished a task that I did not think we needed a machine to do.

Then, in a paroxysm of further activity, Emily chose objects to be discarded. Suitcases, bags, tables, hampers, wrappings, videotapes, old printers and computers, and books, books, books made an impressive pile in our dining room on their way to the front porch and then the curb.

Ultimately, to our relief, some of this material would be picked up by the Big Brother Organization, while other stuff would be cremated in the city dump.

Emily also displayed refined political skills in getting her mother and father to agree with the decision to ditch each item selected. Whenever we expressed reluctance to throw out a given item, she backed off. She respected our refusal to dump some things that she, left to herself, considered disposable.

Like people who move their place of residence, this discovery of mounds of expendable stuff in our house has left my wife, Susan, and me reeling. Of course, we had already accused ourselves of having too much. But gazing on the piles revealed their horrifying immensity.

We now feel lighter, and relish knowing that the attic is less likely to cave in on our heads. And our fears that parts of our very identity would be going out in the trash have proven unfounded.

That I should have been party to the accumulation of excess property clashes with my life style in earlier adulthood. Then, I practiced poverty. In fact, this monastic tradition formed a basic part of my daily existence and I prided myself on not having any possessions of my own.

At least, I did so in the early days, those of my first fervor, when obeying the Jesuit rule meant being scrupulous about the smallest things I used. That was the era when I asked permission for every single razor blade received.

The theory behind this austere approach to daily life saw a tension between having material things and searching for God. Like other religious traditions, mine maintained that love for earthly passions would block your commitment to the spiritual life.  

Part of my mid-life transmission to the so-called “real world” involved discovering how easy it is to accumulate possessions, even things of no earthly use. When my monastic orientation began to wear off, I gradually learned how to acquire more things that I would ever need.

We Americans are awfully good at acquisition. But it comes at a price, both monetary and psychic. Almost every middle-class household lies cluttered with a lot more baggage than can be defended as good for us.

Our daughter has left behind a heap of materials ready for disposal. She has also left her parents feeling happy to be relieved of excess baggage. And she has given us a further sign that she cares about us.

If one never ceases to be a parent, our offspring never stop being daughters and sons. In this instance, our daughter has reached out to her relatively aged parents and unburdened us of burdensome stuff. And she has done so before an era sets in when we might have be threatened with moving away from our home.

Even after the purge, we are not now living like St. Francis of Assisi, nor even Henry David Thoreau. Our possessions are still sufficient to fill much of the house. But we feel lighter toward things and closer as a family.

Perhaps we will call upon Emily for another clutter session in the not so distant future. Meantime, maybe she can find an author to write an innovative book about growing older with less, and enjoying it more.

Richard Griffin