IKEA: A Spiritual Observation

Removed from the prior ability to borrow or inherit a hodge podge of furniture to use in my flat, I was forced to finally go through the IKEA experience.

I recognized myself, as Edward Norton describes in Fight Club, “as so many others, becoming a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct.” For the first time in my life I had the necessity to build my house from scratch and therefore the opportunity to design it the way that I wanted. As I scrolled through the IKEA website, I found myself echoing the postulations of Norton: “What kind of dining set defines me as a person.” This flew in the face of my temporal understanding of this world and my deep seeded recognition of personhood through the lens of God as creator, but it didn’t matter. IKEA was changing the way I was thinking from “who defines me?” to “what defines me?” And the worst part was, this is not even quality furniture! This is cleverly crafted and marketed particle board lego furniture that will not last one-generation and it is produced to be that way! New house or apartment? Well lets redefine this stage of our life with a new bedroom set! Back in Arizona, None of my things matched. Nouveau Southwestern print sectional from Grandma and grandpa, hollywood bed frame from mom and dad. Entertainment center from Aunt Tricia’s last garage sale. Up to this point, I had never even bought a mattress!

As I walked through the aisles of the Swedish furniture hawker, I realized that the items back home did not differ significantly from what I was buying at IKEA in their function, but each piece had a story or person attached to them. My surroundings were defined by who not what was in my life. I do believe that things and places have a spiritual component attached to them, but it is imbued on them by people that use them and the things that were done in those places.

There is nothing wrong with buying new things or wanting your furniture to match, but it is easy to fall into a bad lie pitched by marketing circles that says that you define yourself with what you buy and own. If that is true, than most of us are cheap faux finished particle board awaiting to hit the trash pile when the new fall collection is released or whose lives are worthless if our houses go up in flames. Unfortunately, this thinking is permeating people’s thinking on mankind. Human beings are not seen as important or individual from birth right now in our culture. We are encouraged to define ourselves but only when how we define ourselves lines up with acceptable social mores that change from season to season. Humans are commodities to be used and discarded as those in social power see fit. We are created for a purpose but it is not the purpose of man but of God. And when we are done being useful in this world, God calls us to take part in our final and most glorious purpose: to worship and be in relationship with Him face to face forever. We do have a part to play in this world, but IKEA can’t help us define who we are or what that purpose is. Happy shopping.