I remember years ago reading a travel book that featured some old monastic getaways in Eastern Europe and in Asia. I think that it was in that book where the author relayed a conversation they had with someone who lived in a small monastery. The conversation, which had to do with the austere lifestyle marked by few possessions, came to mind when I read a recent Atlantic article on the renovation and design industries.
Getty; The Atlantic
The article is called “Do You Really Want a New Kitchen Counter?” It opens with mention of the Netflix show “The Watcher” in which an early scene includes a family buying a beautiful new house and insisting on replacing the perfectly good marble countertops because they are “so five years ago.” It is a fitting example, for the article, of something that exists in reality, not just on Netflix. The article points out that in the 1990’s the average annual expenditure in the United States for remodelling of homes was $90 billion. By 2020 it was $400 billion. It turns out that perhaps the main reason is not leaky pipes or peeling floors, but rather a feeling that the house might not be up-to-date style wise. The term “dysplacement” is identified as referring to the worry that your house, unbeknownst to you, might be looked down upon by visitors or others. In other words, you might feel quite good about your home, quite at home in it, but it might be thought of as out of date by other people.
A couple of years ago we had an insurance claim due to a flood in our kitchen. Our dishwasher was faulty and caused a leak that flooded the kitchen and family room areas. The whole floor had to be taken out, and parts of the wall, but the insurance adjuster was intent upon saving the old countertop. To be fair, it is not that old, but is very much older than five years ago. It is two huge pieces of whatever it is made of and the material and colour are not super offensive, but they are both from another era design wise. Much effort on the part of the contractors was put into saving the countertop. We were hoping, that it would break and need to be replaced, but alas - woe is us, they saved it. Now we are stuck with an old countertop (perfectly good, mind you) and the worry that visitors and others might judge us because we have some new things in our kitchen, (floors, etc.), but a mismatched, depressing, old countertop. We know now what this terrible feeling is called, it is called dysplacement.
All of this is why the conversation with the monastic, whose living arrangement was very austere, came to mind. Their room was sparse. There was a bed and a fan. The author of the book asked the monk why there was nothing else in the room. Why no chair or table? The monk replied by saying that they had thought of having a chair, but they did not want to deal with the emotional and psychological distraction. It was something like, “If I get a chair then where will I put it? If I put it in the corner I might start thinking about how it might be better to put it beside the bed. I don’t want to have to fill the space in my head thinking about such meaningless things.”
As we move into Advent and towards Christmas, I have a dysplacement prayer for you.
The prayer, as I feel it and pray it, is a prayer of freedom, not judgment. If you love decorating your spaces, then may you enjoy that all the more. The freedom I am praying for is a letting go of any sense of dysplacement. It just might turn out that people like the spaces you call home because you and others are in them, not mostly because of some design aspect. Maybe old counters and good friends makes a space better.
It brings to mind the often recalled parable of Jesus about the bigger barns. You likely know it. A man had so much stuff that he couldn’t store it all so he had bigger barns built for himself, and then he looked out at them and told himself that he had really made it. Maybe one day I will feel that about our kitchen countertop. For now I will have to get by with beige, and old. I am a long way from the spiritual example of the chair-less monk, but there is a chance that I could love the countertops expressly because they are not new. Would that count as spiritual progress?
Blessings this week as the season of so much stuff is arriving.
This took me back to my days living in the convent where our vow of poverty meant not only being unattached to "stuff," but not having "stuff" in the first place. My cell, as we called our rooms, had a bed, a chair and a small writing desk. A small closet held my habit and shoes and other clothing. How different it is for me today where I actually have one room devoted to my arts, crafts, meditation, books, etc.... Thanks for the fond memories.....Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanks Todd
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