Ellie Roscher’s work as a writer and teacher has been deeply influenced by her education at Holy Spirit Catholic School and Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul. Now 42, the Minneapolis mom of two focuses on wellness, helping people make space for what matters most. “If I have too much stuff, there’s a psychological weight,” Roscher said. “There’s a tie, especially in women, between clutter and depression.”
Q) What makes our lives feel so cluttered?
A) There’s the systems level, where society benefits if we fall into the more-is-more trap. If we’re buying more, consuming more, if our calendars are busy, that speed and clutter support this profit-over-people capitalist mentality. It’s the centrifugal force of the machine, humming “more, more, more.” It takes an attentiveness and an intentionality to say, “No, I don’t agree.”
It’s a spiritual matter because God is constantly whispering, “You are enough. You are very good. You are loved beyond measure.” And we can choose to listen to that voice instead of the voice of society that wants us to buy more.
Q) Why is it so hard to de-clutter?
A) We have the space to fill. I — kind of on purpose — I have a small house where I use the volume of the house. As soon as something gets cluttered, I have to get rid of something. If I had a bigger house, I wouldn’t have to get rid of as much.
We’re all very busy, so there’s other things to do — and we never want to put our time into this because it’s not fun. De-cluttering is rigorous. You have to opt into the intentionality from moment to moment. It’s spiritual work: We have to explore what’s underneath the clutter.
Q) How do you struggle with the more-more-more machine?
A) It’s very hard for me to say no to social invites. I believe the lie that I am more when I do more, the badge of busy. I’m afraid of being seen as aloof or lazy or not earning my keep. But when I’m overwhelmed and exhausted, I’m incapable of doing God’s work in the world.
Q) You write about this in your book “12 Tiny Things.”
A) Our mantra is: saying no to one thing is saying yes to the possibility of another. That makes me brave. It’s saying, “This isn’t mine, but it’s somebody else’s.” By putting it down, I’m giving someone else an opportunity to find their thing.
I’m at the point of my life where now I’m even saying no to good things that I like just because I can’t do it all. And that’s a spiritual issue: God is God, and we are not. We’re not wired to do it all.
What is mine in this season? In this day? Part of my day has to be rest so that I can fulfill what God will ask of me tomorrow.
Q) You encourage Catholics to cultivate “tiny, holy practices.” I love how doable that sounds.
A) My tiny thing when it comes to space is that once a day, as a spiritual practice, I go outside and look all the way up at the sky. It takes 20 seconds. It guarantees that at some point in the day, I am outside. Every time I look up at the sky, regardless of the day and season, what I see is beautiful. What I see is space. I involuntarily take a deep breath and my body relaxes and my shoulders fall away from my ears. It reminds me that I am God’s creature, that God is God and I am not. I can go back to my day situated. I don’t have to solve it all before lunch.
Q) How does parenthood alter the equation?
A) There’s so much pressure to make sure your kids have everything they have ever dreamed about — this influx of gear and toys and clothes and invites. It helped me double down on enough, because I want to give my kids a calm home where they’re not overwhelmed and I’m not frantic, I’m not multi-tasking.
My oldest loves art. He has these two mason jars full of colored pencils. Because he draws so much, I’ll notice little things creep in — “Oh, I should get him a special art kit.” And then I just watch him: He is perfectly happy with his paper and his mason jars of colored pencils. Why would I overwhelm him? More is not more. I want him to have space to create.
Q) He’s perfectly content, yet some outside voice crept in, presenting this prospective purchase.
A) Yes! It goes back to the St. Joseph Sisters, who taught me to always look at how things affect the most vulnerable folks in society. How are the Amazon workers being treated? Where is this coming from and how are those people being treated?
Everything affects the folks who are most vulnerable in a different way, and the sisters encouraged us to go the periphery, to sit at their feet and listen really hard. I’m constantly trying to get more human and more interesting by going and listening to people who aren’t like me and believing them and taking their experience seriously.
We experience being listened to so closely to being loved that most people find it indistinguishable. A lot of my spiritual practice is about making space to listen and allowing that love to shift me in real ways.
I’ve noticed people saying that their listening muscle has atrophied with COVID because we were isolated. Social media is set up to keep us in pockets that become echo chambers, and God is calling us into this way of being more human that is more expansive.
Q) What helps you be a good listener?
A) It has to do with speed — constructing a life that is slow enough where you can welcome an interruption, you’re willing to stop your agenda and clear some space to listen. One of the talks I give to young people is how my faith journey is one of detours. When the Spirit invited me off of the path to take a detour, those are the moments where I ended up experiencing God at a deeper level.
Q) Tell me about your writing process.
A) Too many writers wait for the light to be coming into their office just so, for inspiration. I have to work for it. I’ve also embraced the fact that I’m a kinesthetic thinker, so I do my best thinking when my body is moving. When my kids were babies, I had a Post-It with a pen tucked in my sweater pocket.
My writing process looks like scribbling on cocktail napkins. That’s why I can write books, because I can write the whole thing in the nooks and crannies of my life.
Q) What do you love about being Catholic?
A) I love how it transcends time and space. It’s old, it’s time-tested. I love belonging to something that feels ancient and complicated.
We want easy in our society, and the Catholic Church is not. It’s complicated.
The world is broken, and God wants to co-create with us. There’s this ancient, anti-empire grittiness that aligns for me: The world is not yet how it should be. So, let’s go! Where are the other workers?
