When Jen Hatmaker started writing her latest book, she had 327 pieces of clothing in her closet, and more in drawers. By the time she completed 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess (B&H, Jan.), Hatmaker, an author (Interrupted), speaker, and mother of five, had eliminated more than two-thirds of her wardrobe. And she didn’t miss a single item. The purge was one of seven one-month projects of eliminating excess from seven areas in her life: food, clothes, spending, media, possessions, waste, and stress.
Working alongside her husband Brandon, Hatmaker devised challenges for their family, such as spending money at only seven stores, or giving away seven items each day. “Writing the book cleared out a lot of space--emotional space, actual space, and time,” she says.
Hatmaker decided to take a closer look at her life when she and her husband offered their Texas home as a temporary shelter for a dozen evacuees after Hurricane Ike in 2008. A 10-year-old boy entered the house and immediately exclaimed, “Dad, this white dude is rich!”
Hatmaker was confused. She’d considered her family to be “in the middle of the pack,” but through the evacuee families she saw her family’s many possessions “with fresh eyes.” As co-founder with her husband of Austin New Church in Austin, Tex., Hatmaker’s Christian faith was a motivating force in her desire to simplify her life, but she says readers from a variety of spiritual backgrounds--and many who aren’t religious--have responded positively to the book. “This idea that we’re drowning in excess is not just a Christian idea; it’s timely,” she says. “We’re weary because it seems like we own so much, but what’s happening is that it’s owning us.”
Hatmaker wrote the book, her tenth, while she was conducting the experiments, because she wanted it to be honest. When it was finished she wondered if it was too honest. But she says her candor has allowed readers to recognize they are not alone. “I didn’t float through without struggles or failures,” she says. “It’s given readers the courage to try it themselves.”
The Hatmakers have stuck with a revised budget and have continued to garden and compost. Other challenges, like keeping media to a minimum, are more difficult. But she says some readers have adopted small-scale changes that make big differences, which is exactly the point. “The book is not a template or a prescription,” Hatmaker says. “It’s a conversation to enter into.”
