OK, so I have a confession to make: I’m domestically challenged. My house is untidy and dirty, verging on squalor. This is not what most people mean when they say their homes are a “dreadful mess”. I’m not talking about having to shove a few things out of the way into the cupboard before visitors arrive, I’m talking about being so ashamed of my home that I can’t have visitors round. It’s a HUGE issue for me.
You’d never guess to meet me. For those who know the system, as an Enneagram Three image is very important to me and the way I dress and present myself gives no clue to the inner slob.
What does this have to do with spirituality? Well quite a lot, I’ve recently realised, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
There are reasons for my slovenliness (not excuses, I don’t have any). One is practical: long working hours and a long commute leave me very little time each evening. The other, I think, is psychological: there are a lot of things in my life (primarily work) that I’m unhappy about at the moment, and I suspect I’m using the state of my house as an excuse not to tackle these wider issues.
I started writing this blog partly as a public commitment to take my spiritual life more seriously. One of the things I’ve realised is that my surroundings have a serious negative impact on the expression of my spirituality. The place is such a mess I don’t have anywhere calm to pray and meditate. Everything I haven’t done in the house is always taking up space in my mind, distracting me from prayer. I have no sense of tranquillity. I love beauty, yet seem to value myself so little that my creativity is stifled.
So I’ve just added a big commitment to my Lenten journey. After this, there are three weekends still to go before Easter. I spent 2.5 hours today scrubbing away. I’m going to spend six hours each Saturday and 30 minutes each evening tackling the external grime in my home, in the hope that this will symbolically scour away some of the interior grime.
And then I can welcome the risen Christ into my heart and home on Easter Sunday.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Wendy, thanks so much for this thoughtful comment, and for sharing your own experience. I like what Ann V has written, but I think YOU express it just as well.
I think we have to agree to disagree – gently – on women working outside the home, but I think you are absolutely right about my work being an issue. I need to find something that will use my gifts while paying the mortgage. No doubt I’ll post about that soon. And I think that the home should be a sanctuary and that domestic work is blessed. St Benedict instructs his monks to divide their waking time between the trinity of prayer, work and study. And in that time he was talking about the domestic work of the monastery, which would have included working the fields for crops, hospitality to guests and the various designated tasks within the monastery, such as the infirmarian.
Anyway, I came down this morning after my efforts yesterday to the sun shining on a sparkling kitchen sink, and felt really hopeful!
Hi Tess, What a lovely–and hopeful–image, the sun shining on a sparkling kitchen sink : )
And I also liked what you said about agreeing to disagree gently. I really need to remind myself of the gentle part, it changes everything.
St Benedict’s trinity of prayer work and study has a draw for me too. More and more i find such grace and wisdom in the Benedictine Rule of Life…
Blessed Sunday : ) Wendy
I took the test I’ve only ever taken MeyersBriggs. I am a type four and that sounds about right.
As to your particular issue. I grew up in a home where my mother suffered many of the similar issues in terms of cleanliness of house. As our poverty deepened she took a job working nights so she could tend to us children during the day and my father could take care of us at night. From that point on (which sadly coincided with the birth of my youngest sister – their fourth child), the living condition of our home deteriorated badly – it was a free rental. In other words, we moved their the day Beck was born because a man from our church owned the property and kept cows there. It was far from his home place and so in God’s grace and mercy he offered it to us rent free and in exchange we kept an eye on the cattle. He was a blessing to us. But the house was ancient and in bad shape – between a dilapidated house and Mom’s exhaustion and depression it got to that level and stayed at that level you described.
Poverty in both the sense of currency and in the sense of emotional well-being – is crippling and has long-term affects. I pray God’s blessing on your endeavor as I think it will be healing.
M
Thanks Me for being so open about this, it’s helpful.