Clutter

Those of you have visited me lately might have noticed my dining room table sitting out on the front “porch”. It’s not really a porch. It’s a sort of covered entry place, certainly not big enough for a dining room table. I painted the table last year but didn’t get around to spraying polyurethane or anything on it. So, of course, little children ground their forks and knives into it and made it look lots more pretty. Stupid kids. So one day this summer I had a fit and hauled it out to the porch so that I could repaint it. ‘Cept I didn’t. There it sits. Along with eight big bags of clothes in the basement to bestow on some nice charity shop that never did anything to me, three piles of books in the office that have no home, a dining room table in the basement that is about to collapse, a fridge full of tomatoes I meant to can, a small can of chalkboard paint I meant to apply to the boys wall in an interesting way except that they have filled their walls with junk. The ever growing list of little odd jobs and piles of junk that need sorting through and little corners that need fixing up and restoring began yesterday to weigh on me, as I sat back in my chair reading the internet as I am always doing.

“I think I must have given up,” I said to Matt. “I used to buzz around cleaning and organizing all the time, even when I was practically at the moment of giving birth.”

“Cut yourself a break,” he said, “this has been a stressful summer.”

“But that’s what I’ve been doing,” I said, “cutting myself one long big break, and look where it’s gotten us. Chaos is looming over the horizon. We are about to be eaten alive by our own house.”

So I had a second glass of wine and went to bed early, because what was I going to do, start cleaning? Or canning? Then Paul, this morning, as I am careening towards the end of the New Testament, said,

“15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Ephesians 5

It’s right before the wives submit to your husbands bit so that must be why I always gloss over this, in my rush to be reminded once more to respect and honor my husband. The most discouraging thing about this, as I lie back in my chair in the evening, is that not only am I to walk, but I am to take care how I walk, as if there might be a wrong way. And there is a wrong way, it is unwisely, not making the best use of the time. I know the days are evil, but that knowledge is usually pretty crippling. Boy, it’s terrible, what can I possibly do about it? Nothing. So I’ll have another slice of cheese and another little sausage and read one more article about how bad it is. The days being evil I think is a genuine reason I’m foolish with my time. I allow myself to be overwhelmed by the chaos of the world and of my own life and I stand, inert and sad, holding my basket of broken china, clutching desperately at that which I cannot do.

But the will of God is that I shouldn’t perish and stand there like an idiot. I should get up and walk in the works he has prepared for me before hand–some of them spiritual, like caring for people and teaching and praying and being there for people in their various needs–but lots of them beating back the material chaos of modern life by throwing stuff away and cleaning up and making sure it’s possible to walk through the living room without sustaining an unnecessary injury. Sometimes it means decluttering the piles of stuff that constantly accumulates, even as I ought to rid myself of sin and unforgiveness on occassion. Just because I know I am going to fail doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t get up and work at it. That is foolishness. That is letting the evil days take over.

And on that note, I’m going to the dentist now to have my teeth cleaned, because the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, don’t you know, and in the temple there was always the shedding of blood, and it’s what comes out of the mouth that makes a person unclean, and it’s good to have a big amount of humility given lovelingly by the nice lady with the sharp scraper.

Have a great day!