April 28, 2003

CREATIVE CLUTTER

My main challenge this morning was to write a Messenger article. Some Monday mornings an idea seems to come immediately, spontaneously. But this has been one of those other types of Monday mornings, when inspiration just hasn’t come. I absent-mindedly shuffled papers on my desk, hopeful that I’d come across something that would stimulate my thinking.

Then it struck me—my desk illustrates my problem. It’s covered with layers of stuff, ranging from sermon notes, papers to be filed, books half-read and correspondence to be answered, to tools, nuts, bolts and leftover parts from various fix-it jobs around the church. Many of you have seen my desk, and you know what I mean. If my desk is this cluttered, I thought, my mind is probably just as cluttered. No wonder I’m not able to organize my thinking.

So I set about cleaning my desk. What a chore! About three hours and twenty-five sneezes later, it was absolutely clear, dusted and polished. Of course, there are various little piles of stuff on the chairs, the side table, the file cabinet and in corners of the floor. I’ll deal with them later. But my desk is clean, so my mind too should be clear of the clutter. I’ll be able to write my article.

This is when I learned an important lesson: For me, a cluttered desk functions better than a clear desk. I always seem to know in what part of the clutter to look for a certain thing. The “mess” is really my filing system. That’s why I yell at other people who try to straighten out my desk—their attempt to organize things mixes me all up.

And I think it is also fair to say that a cluttered mind is better than an empty mind. The “clutter” is only proof of how complex and wonderful we are as persons created in God’s image. If he wanted order, neatness, perfect organization, he would have made robots. But he made us, with all our confused circuitry and jumbled mixture of thoughts, feelings, hormones, instincts, creative ideas and laziness. What a mess! And yet, that’s the mix God uses to make each individual a special and unique manifestation of God-breathed humanity.

What makes us different from a robot is just that clutter. Out of the tension between many different impulses, out of the competing interests of flesh and spirit, out of the indecision and confusion involved in making free choices, out of the compromise between idealism and reality, a person emerges. This person reflects God, responds to God, and is loved by God. Thank Him for the creative clutter!

But now, I’ve got a real problem. I’m faced with a boringly brown desk surface. I’ve begun to pile papers here and there, but it will take me weeks to get my desk back to the comfortable clutter I can work with. Until then, don’t expect much from me.

Curse you, Mr. Kleen! Begone, Lemon Pledge!

–Pastor George Van Alstine