A couple years ago, a friend told me to read Sheldon Vanauken’s A Severe Mercy, and I finally got around to it. I mostly found Vanauken’s “pagan love” disturbing, but I appreciate the following rule in his marriage:

Over-valued possessions, we decided, were a burden, possessing their owners. We decided to own nothing we couldn’t be comfortable with […] This idea of the burden of possessions we held to–and years later when we got our first glossy new car, we hit it severely with a hammer to make it comfortably dented. (33)