I am on a cleaning spree. Over the weekend I cleaned out my office. I know this may not be a major thing for most but for me it took 6 hours. You see, because I wear so many hats at the Church (DRE, Director of Youth Ministry, Adult Ed coordinator, RCIA director, Pastoral Associate, Liturgy Planning Team…) my life can be a bit chaotic at times. So, my general practice is to dump the materials from my last task and move onto the next. Now add to the mix my depleted energy for the last two year because of the divorce process. Oh yes, and having a teen age daughter who needs to be moved from here to there…. needless to say my office has been a mess for some time. I have been working at the Church for eight years and there was some documents that I had dating back to my initial days… It was a mess. Sunday a friend and I attacked the closets in the center throwing out pieces of art projects and just stuff that we had been holding on for, I’m not sure why. My cleaning frenzy continues. This week I have taken vacation time to tackle a job I have been dreading all summer — getting the last of my stuff out of the house. Yesterday and these next few days I am picking up everything, looking at it and deciding what to do with it. 16 years we have been in our house and my ex husband is a pack rat supreme. Fortunately I don’t have to sort through his crap but some of my stuff is buried under his. I am literally wearing one of those masks that painters wear because of all the dust and dirt.
My lesson in life? Why do we hold onto so much crap? My mother and father lived through the 
depression. We never threw away any thing as kids. String, aluminum foil and other such stuff was cleaned and reused because my mother’s experience taught her that if you didn’t hold onto it you would need it later. But even she, in this culture of excess, grew out of that mentality as she grew older. Why hold onto “stuff” just in case you might need it? Waste not want not is important but hold onto waste because of a fear of the unknown is ridiculous. Yet we do that don’t we. Most of it is unconscious. We get busy in our lives and we dump and run. Or we buy something new but don’t recycle the old. We just store it away with the idea that someday we will sell it or give it away… but not today because we are too busy. I’ve been there.
What concerns me in my life is not so much the stuff I have accumulated but the outdated attitudes and beliefs. I believe we do the same thing interiorly as we do exteriorly — we dump and run on to the next thing telling ourselves that some day we will think about this or have an opinion about that. Our culture encourages a mentality of “business”. If we aren’t doing ten thousand things in a day then our day is wasted. But in that chaos we have no time to think… dream… create… become. We exist in a faith or political opinion that we put on in the fifth grade. It no longer fits but we are too busy to change.
I am on a quest to re-invent myself. I believe that God would have us become not just in grade school, high school or college, but every day of our lives. My plan is when i am 80 to try something new just because I can. No risk no rewards. Will I fall… you can count on it but I will treasure every scar. But I can’t live that kind of life carrying with me the baggage, papers, attitude, things of my past few lives. Cleaning out the closets, both external and interior, must be a regular event that we SCHEDULE into our lives. Remember spring cleaning? Why not make the spring about the house and the summer our our attitude and lives.
So, today is a new day with new attitudes and new ways. Clean away the old useless things and attitudes of your life. Adopt a new plan where the old no longer works. Join me in the quest to be the best we can be. I remain, your servant in Christ,
Theresa
