This week I decided to clean my house thoroughly, helped by bright
sunshine. This is actually a privilege, as long as you don’t do it too often.
Benefits of
cleaning house: you’re in your own space, moving things around, placing them
just where you want them. You decide what’s clean and what’s dirty. You come
across valued objects from happy times, and things that make you wonder where
you were when. You take notice of oils, chemicals and possible poisons you’ve
overlooked in your environs. If, like me, you’ve been too sick to clean up,
there’s the simple pleasure of agency, being able to do it.
A mental or
spiritual cleaning has the same benefits. Moving outworn ideas into back
cupboards; accepting events or persons you thought were unwholesome; becoming
aware of poisonous emotions like greed, revenge, egotism and hostility. Binning
what you can.
Have you
outgrown some old prayers that can retire behind new ones? Maybe you now think
passing the exam has more to do with your devotion to study, while winning the
lottery is in the hands of chance. Is living the Gospel a possible prayer?
Having the
strength to clean house can be pure pleasure. Looking at the clean house,
dwelling in it, even though you know you’re going to have to do it all again.
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