Once every two weeks, I load the car up with recyclables--cans, bottles, cardboard, plastics and (above all) newspapers--and head out to the township dump, a place for which I have a sneaky sort of affection. I like the dump run; I find it deeply satisfying. So does my older kid, who has learned that you can make a soul-pleasing BOOM! when you pitch a bundle of newspaper into the dumpster so that it hits the back wall, hard. The kid had a cold, so this time I got to do the newspaper-pitching. But I'm glad he taught me the knack of it.

I was especially in the mood for the dump run because I'd woken up in a metanoical frame of mind. For the last couple of weeks, I'd been flagellating myself for some self-fancied failure. Rationally speaking, I knew it wasn't a failure at all--but a little voice in my mind kept saying things like "You're only ducking responsibility" "you're just making excuses" "you're evading reality". You know the sort of thing one part of your mind can say to the rest of you, if it wants to get real nasty. It's like having a monkey on your shoulder, whispering criticism into your ear, and because the monkey is yourself, it knows exactly where your corns and tender places are, and how to step on them, metaphorically speaking.

I'm not talking about genuine repentance here. I've done some of that too, and that feels very different: a pang of shame or sorrow, followed by deep relief and a sense of peace and purposefulness. I'm talking, instead, of the sort of relentless, pitiless nitpicking that we inflict on ourselves or others and that has no proper relationship to reality. The monkey has no interest in helping us become better people; it's only interested in proving how sinful we are. The monkey knows that we're Wrong, whatever we do, and it isn't interested in hearing about our humanity. It relishes condemnation and never makes allowances. It is not a nice monkey.

The monkey had been particularly busy and noisy of late, stomping my corns with gay abandon, and my spiritual life had gone dry and hard as old playdoh in consequence--the two are (not surprisingly) inextricably linked. But this morning I woke with a bell-like note of sweet, clear commonsense ringing in my mind: true reason that even the monkey had to respect. I knew, in my bones, that my "failure" was the result of a perfectly good decision I'd made, a logical consequence of choosing A instead of B--and I'd make the same choice again, if life offered it to me. And I could be at peace about the matter, finally.

It felt so good to be properly off the hook of my own hyperbolic conscience that I wanted to sing, and did as I drove dumpwards through the dun-coloured landscape, loving it even in its Mud Season aspect. Now that I'd put my obsessional self-blame down, what was even better was to hear that small voice in the underside of my mind saying, so sweetly, "Child, where the heck have you *been*? You had Me worried." "Well, jeez, God, where've you been?" "I was here all along. You know that." "Well, I was here all along, and you know that too." "Yes, child, but you weren't *listening-."

It occured to me then how good a job I'd done of erecting my self-judgment as a barrier between me-myself and the good love of the Lord, in both senses of that phrase--both the giving and the receiving. I don't know why we always seem to fetch up in this spot, but we do. In our obsessive preoccupation with not letting ourselves or each other off the hook--making sure that nobody gets away with anything, attributing the worst motives, being the most suspicious and righteously punitive--we shut God out. I'm particularly good at focusing on my own failures; others prefer to focus on other people's. The effect, nonetheless, is about the same. Our judgment comes, quite literally, between us and that sweet goodness of God's grace and mercy.

Musing on this, I unpacked the car at the dump, tossing the whole mess where it belongs. I tumbled the plastics into their bin, heaved the cardboard into another dumpster, upturned the bag of tin cans into the right container and (oh glory!) pitched the bottles into their bin, smashing them with abandon, while the dump guy looked on grinning. (*Everybody* loves smashing bottles.) There's nothing like a proper clearing of the decks, especially when you get to be childishly destructive in the process....

Lastly the newspapers. As I hurled bundles at the back of the dumpster, joying as they thunked the wall, I thought: Dear God, I am going to try to give the heave to my perfectionism. Dear God, when I start doing this again, because knowing me, I'm going to, I give you permission to whomp me upside the head with a two-by-four. Dear God, help me to see that automatically thinking the unprovoked worst of anybody, me included, is a bad idea. Dear Lord, why do we always have to work so hard at making sure You don't get through to us? Is this what judgment is about--shutting You out?

I know my resolution won't last. I know when I'm tired or stressed, I'll tumble right back into the old self-biting patterns. Change never comes easy, and it as often comes as a matter of daily decisions as it comes all-of-a-piece. Three steps forward, two back (and sometimes four back). But I can work on it, with God's help.

And when I start doing this again, remind me to head for the dump.

(for Caro, with love)