A friend who is a bit of a fan of Marie Kondo, posted a question on Facebook intended to spark conversation: “If you were to keep only 5 books, which five would you keep?” I don’t post much on Facebook other than birthday greetings and I am not tempted to go into my personal preferences in that forum, but the question seemed silly to me.

I am trying hard to downsize. We did give away about 2/3 of our books in preparation for this move. For the record, we had a lot of books. We still have more than the average home, I suspect. We have three bookcases in our living room now, down from ten in our library in our home in South Dakota. There we both also had offices with walls of bookshelves filled with our personal books.

I find the question impossible. If I were to only keep 5 books, I assume that one would be a bible. At this moment, we have more than 5 bibles in our bookcase. Which is more important, the bible my parents gave me for confirmation with an inscription in my father’s handwriting, or the bible my mother’s father received from the national setting of the Methodist church for his service? Is my “Aussie Bible” paraphrase in outback vernacular more valuable than Clarence Jordan’s “Cottonpatch” version?

I have no problem with access to books. Our son is the director of a community library. I have a library card and can access many more books than just the ones on our shelves. I make good use of the library and usually have multiple books checked out at any moment. Even though the library here is not open for in-person visits, it does have curbside service and our library card gives us access to a huge library of digital books that can be read on my tablet computer.

Still, there are books that we enjoy owning. I have books that were written by my teachers, books to which I personally contributed, books that I enjoy reading over and over again, and books that were treasured by parents and grandparents.

So, rather than respond to the arbitrary choice of five books which are most important to me, I’m simply going to make a few observations about Marie Kondo.

I’m sure that most readers of my journal know that Marie Kondo is an organizing consultant and author and the CEO of Konmari Media, LLC. She has quickly risen to fame with her principles of organization that lean heavily on minimalism. Keep only the things that give you joy. Sort through every possession and get rid of the ones you don’t immediately need. You know the kind of advice she gives. It has a lot of value and can be helpful in our materialistic society.

She is an interesting person, but I’m not obsessed with her ideas. However, since my friend often brings up her name, I’ll offer a few observations.

First of all, Marie Kondo is young. She is younger than our youngest child. Her parents are both still alive. That fact alone begs two questions. The first is whether or not she has any possessions that remain at her parents’ home. Even though she married and has lived with her husband in Tokyo, San Francisco and Los Angeles, it certainly is possible that there is a box of items saved from her childhood somewhere in her parents’ home. Her mother may even have kept some of her schoolwork or childhood treasures intending to give it to her when she gets older. The second question is: "Will she be as ruthless with getting rid of things when the time comes for her to share in the sorting of her parents’ possessions. Having inherited the job of sorting through the possessions of our parents and other elders when they reached the end of their lives? I know how easy it is to accumulate family treasures. Some of the things in our house have been in our family for generations and we don’t see them as our possessions as much as a trust from others that we will pass on to future generations.

I wonder if Marie Kondo will have the same dedication to minimalism when she is in her sixties as she does in her thirties. I didn’t have as many possessions when I was her age as I do now. We were minimalists when we lived in a furnished efficiency apartment as graduate students. We owned only one piece of furniture: a small desk. People change. We should at least allow Marie Kondo the possibility of changing as she journeys through her life.

Secondly, Marie Kondo has a big brother and a younger sister. They probably already know that the task of sorting the parent’s possessions will fall to them and not to Marie. It seems likely that the family organizing consultant might not become the family historian and archivist. She can throw out family treasures and know that she will be able to turn to a sibling in the future who might have kept some of the things she discarded.

Thirdly, Kondo now has two daughters, Satsuki and Miko. I don’t know their ages, but if they have not yet done so, I bet they will discover Lego building toys. It is my observation that Lego bricks multiply on their own. You can try to limit the number of Legos in a home, but they will expand. Lego bricks might not spark joy in Marie, but her daughters might have a different opinion. She is lucky that we are not family friends, because I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t restrain myself from making a gift of Legos to her daughters.

And finally, Marie Kondo comes from multiple religious traditions. Her teachings are heavily influenced by Shintoism a traditional religion in Japan. She attended Tokyo Women’s Christian University. Chances are she has either a book of Shinto poetry or stories or a Christian bible or book of some kind. She is the author of four books. My hunch is that either she is not planning on writing any more books or she has allowed herself to keep more than 5.