Cleaning Day

It is time to put away a few things.
Nothing radical mind you, just a judicial putting away
of thing you no longer use, things
that no longer serve you, life you.

You are not in the place where you need reminders
of your failures to sput you to something better.
You no longer need more. You need better.
To do better and be better at less things,

to simplify. To turn off. To find the time to rest
and think and pray without interruption or
distraction. To live in the colors that you love
and that love you.

It is not hard, the putting away.
Everything has a place, and if it does not
you throw it away. Not it is not the putting
that causes this mess you live in,

It is your insistence in bringing out the old things.
For what? One more reminder? One more prod?
Perhaps you need to feel pain, like a self flagilating monk.
Perhaps you have not learned your most basic lesson

that you are worth love. And very little else matters.
It is all window dressing. Dust catchers. that hold the dirt,
even if you were not made for the dirt,
but for the air, the light, the things of love.

Make way.
It is cleaning day.

About this poem

I have just finished the sermons for my two churches this Sunday. As usual they were cluttered with theology and stories, when in the end, they only needed a simple message. God loves us. We are worthy of his love. We are worthy of the love of others. Time to put everything else away. Most things in life are like that. Not just sermons.

The picture was taken at the Hancock Shaker VIlliage in Pittsfield, Mass. The Shakers got it

Tom