[SB] sabbath-blessing

[Molly Wolf]

House-Crud

I keep falling into mini-pits of utter exhaustion, but bit by bit, the 
house is coming along.

We moved in three years ago, less a week, more or less; we got the 
renovations done and ourselves more or less unpacked -- and then things 
stalled. Too much other stuff going on, much of it emotionally difficult. 
Over three years, if you don't stay on top of it (and I rarely do), what I 
can only call house-crud builds up. We used the downstairs big room 
casually as a sort of dumping ground for things I couldn't bring myself to 
get rid of. My younger son's two downstairs rooms sank first into disorder, 
then into (I have to say it!) complete squalor. One of the upstairs 
bedrooms held the TV, a grotty couch, my older son's futon bed, and the 
collection of paperwork that I could not bring myself to look at. Unless 
you're a neat freak, you probably know what I mean.

Kat's arrival two weeks ago precipitated a very badly needed upheaval. We 
needed that upstairs bedroom for her, so the grotty couch got the heave. We 
needed a downstairs bedroom for my older son's visits home, so the two 
downstairs bedrooms had to be blasted out. We haven't exactly fully tackled 
the rec room, but there is much, much less stuff in it than there was. The 
Salvation Army's stash has been greatly enriched. The little sofa in my 
office is now Kat's, as is an old dresser. The place is still a bit of a 
mess, but it's a *promising* mess. I've promised myself that we're going to 
chew away at this project with an expected completion date of March 1, at 
which time I want the place to be tidy and clean.

At the same time, it came to my attention this week that there are still 
lumps of what I can only call soul-crud that likewise have to be addressed. 
Two of them are things I'm not willing to go public about, but the third is 
anger.

Long, long ago, I took the decision that I want to stand with the poor: 
that that was the one right thing to do. I turned my back on my own 
slightly-upper-middle class privilege; I worked as a clerk typist. I worked 
as a fishmonger (happy memories there). I shopped down-market. I try always 
to look at the faces of the poor with the love that Jesus would have shown 
to them., and I try to proclaim the call of social justice for all God's 
children.  I don't do it right, but I do try. This isn't anything I can 
claim credit for; it's simply doing the Gospel as is my simple duty as a 
follower of the Christ.

What I learned this week, though, is that around this issue, I have some 
very hot buttons about wealth and privilege and the privileged's tolerance 
of the existence of an underclass. Instead of tackling the class-crud in 
our society, we tolerate it, just as I tolerated my house-crud because 
dealing with it looked too difficult. As I'd let things slide because I 
couldn't face the prospect of tidying up, so has the society I'm living in; 
we've made pain-avoidant choices of which we're now seeing the fruits, and 
they are not pretty.

But I can't point fingers, because I've done the same. I haven't tackled my 
own soul-crud propensity for self-righteous indignation, and it got off its 
leash last week and almost bit someone who didn't deserve to be bitten. 
(Fortunately, a dear friend gave me an appropriate noogie and I got the 
beast back on its lead again.) In church on Thursday, I had real confession 
to make.  The  Sin of Anger is the favourite of the Seven Deadlies for 
idealists, and I am one.

I'm pretty good at Sloth too, looking at the stack of paperwork that sends 
me into anxiety attacks. But this too has to be tackled. Kat can help; she 
doesn't mind paperwork at all, and maybe it's something we can do jointly, 
a little at a time. Metanoia is rarely a one-time thing; it's a matter of 
changing habits, a bit at a time, until the crud's been cleaned up and 
you've set your course in the direction God desires.

Meanwhile, I'm admiring the carpet in my office. It was under there all 
along. There's still stuff that needs to be put away, but nothing I can't 
manage in under ten minutes.



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I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis 
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.