I just got back to my office after being gone for eleven days. What a spider-web mess I found on the outside of my windows! Geez… The place looked like I hadn’t been here for three months.
As I swept cobwebs away from the brick and glass, I thought about how frequently I had to clean in order to keep my premises looking nice and spiffy. A few days off duty, and the build-up of dust, dirt and neglect get totally out of hand. It’s almost a daily effort in the summer to keep the windows clear.
While picking up litter too, I found parallels between how often physical premises have to be cleaned for proper maintenance to the diligence required to keep our mental premises clean. There can be no vacations from the pursuit of spiritual growth if we want to keep our mental home maintained to a high standard and free of pain, suffering and disease. As soon as we retreat from proper moral and spiritual care of our thinking, the spiders and dirt of the carnal mind move in and take over making a mess to clean up until we decide to pay attention once again.
It’s easier to keep unwanted intruders out before they invade the sanctity of our consciousness in the first place. That’s what daily prayer is all about–keeping our standard for living high and staying there. It’s worth the effort.
It’s interesting.
Having just come back from vacation to a “wilderness” area – filled with cobwebs, ages of dust, and disorder – having reveled at the beauty displayed by these very attributes – taking pictures as reminders – the first thing that happens is that this very same type of “mess” is cleaned up.
The human mind certainly does set its own conditions for beauty, doesn’t it? 😉
Jim
I struggle with the whole ‘mess’ thing too. There’s no doubt I feel fresh when the house is clean and tidy but most of that mess is human generated, even the dust.
When it comes to spiders and other intruders, for me its a question of boundaries. They intrude on my space and I, eventually, turf them out. But even that’s a problem for me since we humans have intruded on the space of oh so many creatures over the years.
You’ve certainly got me thinking, Evan, thank you!
You’re definitely worth reading Evan. Sometimes though you get a little predictably formulaic with the analogies.
For your next absence, consider hiring someone to stop by to clean your facade and sweep the sidewalk as often as you would. If you came back after eleven days and thought yuck about your physical place of business, what did people think who passed by during that period, especially after a week?
Forethought. Makes me think of Psalm 139.
I’ll work on not being “formulaic.” Your comment gave me much to think about, and it’s helpful!
Thx,