Spring Cleaning Season is Finally Over

For some reason this year Spring Cleaning seemed like a good idea. Not exactly sure why (as my mother pointed out, "I have no idea where you learned that"). And, after spending 4 hours on the first (and smallest) room turns out that Spring Cleaning was more fun to think about doing than to actually do. It sounded like a really good idea in my head the last few weeks of the school year when all I wanted to do was something that made me feel like I actually accomplished something. I would sit at my desk and dream up a plan for cleaning...would it be smarter to take it room by room? Or should I wipe/dust all the baseboards at once?

In the end I went with the room by room strategy. There was a moment of Spring Cleaning Truth early on in the venture when I looked down into a vent. You should understand that I live in an older home so the vent is really a large hole in the floor with a wooden slatted cover. While it isn't an endless abyss, it easily could be a hiding place for a small child. As I looked down and saw a cat toy (there hasn't been a cat in the apartment for 2 years) and some other random objects I realized I had a choice: to really Spring Clean or not. I seriously paused for a good bit staring at the vent and then, somewhat proud and annoyed with myself at the same time, took the time to take off the slats and clean out the vent.

I won't bore you with the rest of my Spring Cleaning adventure that spanned about a month and at one point caused a friend to ask me, "Kate, do I need to do an intervention?" Throughout the month, however, I kept thinking about staring down into that vent (especially when I was at similar breaking points: do I clean behind the stove too??) and wondering what it was that compelled me in that moment with the vent to truly Spring Clean. Because, truth be told, there were other moments along the way that I chose the alternative (i.e., while I did move the stove, I didn't even bother with the top of the kitchen cabinets and I am well over thinking it would be a good idea to clean my screens).

In one of my new Favorite Books of All Time it says: "true religion is radical; it cuts to the root (radix is Latin for root). It moves us beyond our "private I" and into reality. Jesus seems to be saying in the Sermon on the Mount that our inner attitudes and states are the real sources of our problems. We need to root out the problems at that level. He says not only that you must not kill but that you must not even harbor hateful anger. He begins with the necessity of a pure heart (Matthew 5:8) and knows that the outer will follow. Too often we force the outer and the inner remains like a cancer" (Richard Rohr,Everything Belongs).

I want to be radical. And I want to want to do the work it takes do so. I think that one of the things that can be so discouraging about it is that there is always something to be rooted out. I am someone who wants to get things done (quickly if possible) and cross it off the list (for good). What I am learning, however, is to be patient with myself...patient with others...to remember that while my screens may still be filthy, I did clean the dang vents and perhaps next spring (please tell me there isn't such a thing as Fall Cleaning??) I will do the opposite.