Recently, I listened to a homily about the Vine and the Branches.

My priest talked about how, these days, we prune mostly for aesthetics – we mow the grass and trim the shrubs so they look even and tidy.  However, in biblical days, pruning was necessary for survival.  Growers would cut away the branches that weren’t producing fruit, so a plant could focus more food and resources on the branches that were productive.

I liked this analogy, and thought about how it pertains to the stuff of our lives.

Look around your home.  What belongings of yours are productive? What items do you use regularly, reliably and with pleasure?  Those are your productive branches.

Conversely, what items of yours are NOT producing fruit?  What items are more trouble than they are worth?  What do you have just too much of, so that your attention and resources are wasted.

Consider the cost of maintenance.

First, we purchase an item.  If it’s an expensive item, perhaps we also purchase a special case for it, a warranty or an insurance policy.

We choose a spot in our home to keep it, and now that chosen space cannot hold other items.

OR… We don’t choose a spot in our home to keep it, and it floats around, getting lost or broken.

Or… We have so many other things that we have also purchased, the new item gets stuffed in the chosen spot with 10 other items, and now we can’t find anything.  And that is just storage.

Perhaps our new special item requires temperature control or lighting, or special cleaning or regular maintenance.

The problem is not with the new item.  If we have just an item or two that requires this special treatment, we can manage.  The problem comes when we have many such items that require care and storage and maintenance and time, and our resources get spread so thin we can’t properly take care of anything!

“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”  Bilbo Baggins, Fellowship of the Ring by JR Tolkein

In the interest of pruning, of cutting away the unproductive parts to focus on the productive parts, clear the clutter that isn’t serving you and your life.

For example, purge clothes you no longer need or want to make more breathing room in your closet and life for the clothes that really represent you.

Cull your books so that you can focus on the ones that actually hold an interest for you, and keep a smaller pile so that you might find time to actually read them!

Clear away the clutter from hobbies that you no longer love or participate in.  I have clients with sporting equipment they haven’t used in 20 years, craft supplies they no longer have an interest in using, tools that are still in the box.

Cut away, metaphorically speaking, the unproductive parts so that you can focus your time and attention on the stuff of your life that serves you well!