spring cleaning – Aspirational Adventures

Clean Monday – 18th March 2024

This will also appear on Godspacelight at some point this week

Spring in my local park – March 2024. Photographed by myself

I did a piece last year for Clean Monday and only just remembered as the ideas fell into my head to write a piece this year

This year’s is taking a very different tack. I won’t go over what I wrote last time. You can read it if you want. This year I am much more focused on the cleaning angle.

Until March 2020 I rented the top two rooms out in my house with Airbnb. This meant that almost every day I was having to scrub down my house, check for dust, hidden dog toys, that we’d not left anything just lying about. It was a hard job but at that time I had the grace for it and almost enjoyed it. Then enter lockdown and Covid. My daughter lived with us for eleven of the main sixteen months. My husband was now working from home. There was no thought of anyone coming to stay over the 2020/21 period. So no real worry about keeping things too clean.

Lockdown ended. Daughter went back to her own town and back to work. Husband has continued working in the top small bedroom, venturing into his office occasionally but not regularly. All this gave me time to re-evaluate whether I wanted people staying in my house; to which the answer was No. The grace had gone and so it was time to move on with what I did with my time.

I’ve got more into my writing, into praying, into study, into coffee with friends. Life has changed. But so has my love of doing housework.

So with spring slowly appearing I have decided I need to give the house a real spring clean. I wrote the list. I planned out the rooms – what needed doing and how. I checked I had the required tools and products. I even checked the date to see what would be good one to start. What better date than today?

Or maybe tomorrow? Or when it’s warmer? Or just before we go on holiday? Or when we come back from holiday? Or just before certain friends come to stay? Or maybe I need to buy a steamer or a handheld hoover? Or perhaps I’ll do the car first? Or the garden? Or the dog?????

But then I realised how much I can be like this with my Christian life. I make the lists of what I want from this season, what books to read, the journal to write in, put an allotted time in my diary – and then …. Well there is always tomorrow. Next week. After the holidays. After friends come to stay. After I’ve bought a certain book. Perhaps the dog needs big hike in the woods and I could pray then/write poetry then/get closer to God then.

EXCUSES! Nothing more than excuses! A fear? Of what? Of the changes God might make?

Aren’t we good at finding plausible excuses?Yet the Bible has much to say about not putting off to tomorrow what you can do today. I thought there were only one or two but Open Bible has collected 46!!! Forty six bible verses that pertain to doing things when you say you’ll do them and not putting them off! Oh My Goodness!!!! That has certainly surprised me.

So perhaps I will get on and start on those spring cleaning chores. Though I think I’ll listen to Christine’s Liturgical Rebels podcasts as I do. Covering both the physical cleaning and a bit of spiritual cleaning too. And hopefully the biggest thing I’ll learn is not to put off till tomorrow what I am more than capable of doing today.

Clean Monday/World Social Justice/Love Your Pet Day

First published on Godspacelight.com on Tuesday 21st February 2023

Renly, my dog, and Max, my granddog, waiting for their breakfast. Photographed by myself December 2022

Due to Godspace’s format on having Christine’s Meditation Monday post on a Monday this has been published on Tuesday 21st February rather than Monday 20th February.

This year World Social Justice Day, National Love Your Pet Day and the Lenten tradition of Clean Monday all happen on the same day. So you can scrub your house clean in preparation for Lent, like spring cleaning but being able to give it a spiritual twist and not feel so fed up about doing it, as you love your pet and ponder social justice. Interesting too that World Social Justice day comes in Black History month. Is it possible to look at Black history without thinking about social justice? Interesting too that Christine suggested “Breaking Down Walls” as the theme for Lent. Perhaps it needs to start beforehand? In fact that isn’t a real question. Of course it should start beforehand. We shouldn’t wait until there is a designated day or month to think about social justice, Black history or even loving our pets.

With Love Your Pet and World Social Justice on the same day I wondered which one more people would focus on. I am suspecting it would be to love your pet. Why? Because that is easy. Our pets give us something back. They love on us too. But social justice? Well that’s a hard one. For a start, what does it mean? And will it give us anything in return? I think too often as human beings in our modern world we expect something in return. I remember when people would come round with a bucket collecting for some charity, but now when you do something for charity – whether a marathon at home, some many push ups, going up in a hot air balloon, walking the Great Wall of China, or whatever – you will get a reward for your efforts to raise that money. You will get something back.

I think of Tyre Nichols and other deaths that happen in the so-called civilized world. I wonder if those policemen love their pets. A bit of me thinks they probably do. Are they bad men? Well they did a bad thing, but if we are going to think about World Social Justice should we be looking at people like them too? Or is it easier to say they are evil and don’t deserve any justice? What would Jesus do?

I’m sure on this day if Jesus was walking in our world he would not have trouble choosing. But then I don’t think Jesus would need a specific day to think about Social Justice, loving a pet or even having stuff in his house that needed cleaning out.

Is the “Clean house” at the start of Lent more of a metaphor for something spiritual as well being a physical thing? I wonder if it is about cleaning out ourselves so that during the season of Lent we aren’t just going through the motions of reading devotions dedicated to the season, going to services, and fasting, but our “houses/hearts” are already cleaned so we can understand what Lent is all about and get close to God, and so when the Crucifixion and Resurrection come our hearts are in a place to fully receive all that is offered in both those amazing events.

If we took seriously the “clean house/heart” and stepped into this Lent season and the fullness of what Jesus has done for us then we would not need a specific day to think about World Social Justice because it would be at the forefront of not just our minds but our actions every single day.

And I do think maybe having a National Love Your Pet day is really unnecessary because most of us with pets love them each and every single day much more than we care about many other things.

Perhaps someone should do a “Love people not of your social group more than you love your pets” day?

So today as we have all these things to think about, where will your focus be? Social Justice and how you can be more involved with that? Spring cleaning your house? Spring cleaning your heart? Or loving on your dog, cat, bird, rabbit, etc? Will you pick the easy one or the hard one? Or is it possible to do them all?