For the last 30 years we have kept in our attic a wooden sculpture that my wife and I have never liked. Its artistic and monetary value is probably slight, but for three decades we have scrupled to throw it away.

Why? Because this art work was given to us by relatives on the occasion of our wedding. Even though the donors have never visited our home, and have indeed passed from this earth, we still fantasize about them coming by with the expectation of seeing the sculpture enshrined in a place of honor.

By way of disclosure, my wife disavows any responsibility for this particular column of mine. As a confirmed kin-keeper, she always takes pains not to give the least offense to relatives. In this instance she fears that word of her true feelings about the sculpture might get back to the artist, the son of the donors.

How many times have you received from friends gifts that you have never liked and would love to get rid of? Chances are that you still have at least some of those gifts because, like us with the sculpture, you would feel guilty about throwing them away.

Those gifts qualify as clutter. They do so by a double title in the definition used by Erica Salloux, a self-styled “personal and business organizer.”

Speaking at a half-day conference organized by the Theological Opportunities Program, she defined clutter as “Anything I am not using; anything I do not think is beautiful.”

For her, the commonly offered definition, “anything that is not useful,” does not fit. Many of the objects that you should get rid of are in fact useful for other people or, in different circumstances, might be for you.

Clutter has a surefire way of complicating life. For most Americans, at least, the amount of “stuff” in their possession rates as a nagging, persistent problem. And it’s not just the physical problem of freeing space in one’s home for comfortable living.

For Salloux and clutter consultants like her, the problem goes deeper. They see it as both a psychological and spiritual issue. For them, getting free of clutter involves putting your internal life in order. As Salloux says: “It’s not sufficient to come in and start throwing out stuff without doing the work of reflecting on one’s life.”

She asks people what has made it possible for them to let go of something before having a replacement. Her answer is trust. In this instance trust means that “what you are letting go of is not essential to who you are.”

But it helps to recognize the various types of stuff that make our lives less free than they might otherwise be. For some of us, paper that has accumulated without a goal looms large. So does electronic clutter in the form of emails and other material saved for no clear purpose.

Many among us have clothes hanging in closets that we have not worn in the last decade. Erica Salloux urges a rule of thumb that makes sense: “With a very few exceptions, if you haven’t used something in the past year, you’re never going to use it.”     She recommends giving yourself a deadline. And, shifting to the esthetic, she advises: “don’t wear things you don’t love to wear.”

My attic also shelters the relics of students who, over many years, have left us books, notes, and other materials with the assurance they would come to pick up the stuff later. That later has not yet arrived. This kind of leavings should qualify as prime candidates for throwing out.

The consultant quoted here believes it important to have the proper tools. Trash bags and boxes are vital for sorting among things that need to be thrown out or perhaps saved.

If you have things that are broken you probably need to decide whether to get them repaired or to discard them. For the first option, it helps to put a date on the thing by which time you will have it fixed.

Similar advice holds for other things that you are undecided about. These can be put in a box, dated, and placed in another room. This allows you to test whether or not you are going to miss the thing.

In writing about “stuff” I remain mindful that people in Dafur and too many other places in the world have no such problems. Would that they did!

Nor do those Americans among us who frequent soup kitchens and food pantries. Most of them, at least, do not have the luxury of suffering from clutter the way their more privileged contemporaries do.

About that wooden sculpture in the attic: One of these days I may pull off a stealthy raid by night, seize it, and put it out on the curb for the trash collectors. Maybe some neighbor will walk down the street and add it to his or her clutter.

Richard Griffin