Katie’s Musings: Spring Cleaning

This past weekend, I decided to engage in that most ancient and sacred of traditions:  spring cleaning.

Confession:  I hate cleaning.  In all its forms.  With a passion.  I know that some people find it cathartic, and make it a part of their weekly and even *gasp* daily routines.  I recognize that cleaning can prove to be very relaxing, this act of putting one’s life in order and finding things that are lost and giving away things that are no longer of use.  I recognize all that.   But I still don’t like it, and I never have.

I’m not sure why.  Perhaps it’s because I find that there are so many other better things to do – there are hiking trails to be explored, shopping lists to attend to, friends to meet for lunch, activities outside of my own immediate sphere that seem really important and much more enjoyable than doing laundry or washing dishes or any of that.  I’m told my naturally overly creative nature may have something to do with it, that creativity requires a small amount of chaos, and I think there’s something to that.  Regardless of the potential reason, my house is rarely much more than possibly picked up.  And I’m generally ok with that, comfortable with living in a general state of messiness.

But this past weekend, it was getting to the point that I couldn’t find things I needed, couldn’t get out of the house as fast as I required.

So…. nevertheless, I persisted.  And cleaned my house.  Digging through months worth of rubbish and trinkets collected from various events, sweeping up the dust of a winter, sorting through a longer-time-than-I’d-like-to-admit accumulation of stuff that has been piling up on various surfaces.  Doing a shocking mountain of laundry and an even more shocking mountain of dishes.  And I have to very begrudgingly admit… it felt good.  And oddly energizing.

We are at the start of what is actually my favorite church season:  Lent.  Lent as a season is not biblical.  There’s no scriptural precedence for it to exist whatsoever.  But in the early days of the Christian movement, the leaders decided they needed something to shake their folks up a bit.  Jesus hadn’t returned as quickly as had been expected and, as a result, the followers were getting complacent.  Comfortable within their own lives.  Letting things slide.  And things began metaphorically piling up.  What had begun as a movement of hard work, martyrdom, strain and stress, had turned into a life seeking ease.  And who could blame them, really?  Ease is so much easier.

So, using the multiple times in the scriptures that an individual or group had been led through the wilderness for 40 days as a guide, they instituted Lent as a 40-day refocusing period.  The thought was that if a dash of discomfort was added back into their lives, they could find that fire that they had once had to drive them forward, that impetus to be the change they wished to see in the world, instead of a quiet, complacent minority in an oppressive regime.

The word Lent comes from the Old English “lenten” meaning simply, “spring season,” and this year, I’m choosing to see it as a “spring cleaning season” of sorts.  Out with the old and in with the new.  A refocusing of my priorities and my decisions.  Lent starts with a smear of dirt and ashes on the forehead, and I think that’s really important, because in order to eventually rise out of our dirt and our ashes, we first have to recognize them.  Sit with them.  Sift through them, eliminating what we don’t need anymore and understanding what might be useful there that we hadn’t previously seen.  It’s rough work, this Lent stuff.  And I’m certainly not saying it’s always enjoyable or comfortable.

But I have to admit… it does kind of feel good.