I’ve been out of my office for two weeks while teaching a class on Christian Science elsewhere in town. During this time, I stopped by to pick up my mail and check on the premises, but otherwise, had no time for regular housekeeping.

Yesterday was my first full day back, and man-o, did I have cleaning to do! It’s amazing how dusty and dirty a place can get in two weeks. Especially in the desert climate I live in.

Do you know what I’m talking about??

I had to pick up fallen leaves from my Fichus plant, vacuum the floor, sweep cobwebs off the outside of my windows, pick up strewn litter on the lawn, dust furniture, and more. I’ll spare telling you about the “more…”

As I cleaned, I thought about how persistent we must be to keep our physical homes clean from gathering dust and cobwebs. We cannot leave a place for an extended period of time and come back expecting to find the premises as sparkling clean as we left them if no attention was given to the place in the meantime. Dust accumulates. Bugs move in and make a home. Plants need to be watered.

And then I thought about how equally persistent we must be to keep our mental home free of gathering dust and cobwebs! It’s a different kind of dust that moves into thought, but equally as offensive. Dusty thinking like apathy, indifference, forgetfulness, lack of spiritual growth, energy and vigor, contribute to an environment of thought that is unpleasant to occupy. A few days of spiritual neglect, and bam-o, we have a mess to clean up!

This summer, with countless people taking vacations, I considered how important it is to not take a mental vacation from proper mental housekeeping while traveling. If we’re tempted to leave prayer behind and stop growing spiritually while sunning on the beach or walking through shops, we might have a mess to clean up when we return home. Mental dust gathers, subtle fears mount, latent worries increase, unless checked by truth.

It might be a whole lot easier to keep the broom of truth sweeping through consciousness moment by moment, even if it requires some spiritual time-outs between tanning sessions, than have to deal with an accumulated mess later on. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” an old proverb states.

That’s what I’m thinking anyway…