Who knew staying at home would be this challenging?
Once our sanctuaries, our homes have instead become our captors. As such, we've all been forced into an abundance of coping mechanisms. Some have been productive like home improvement projects, while some have served to only pass time like binge-watching all 125 episodes of Parks and Recreation. But all have helped me navigate these first weeks indoors.
However, reorganization has been my goto. Cabinets, closets, the garage, and backyard have all succumb to my persistence. The resetting and purging have helped me feel good about accomplishing something, albeit ultimately trivial. In my study this week I found some prudent advice regarding reorganization from John the Baptist.
“It’s your life that must change, not your skin. And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as ‘father.’ Being a child of Abraham is neither here nor there—children of Abraham are a dime a dozen. God can make children from stones if he wants. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.””
John accurately points out that it is our lives that require a clean up, not just our homes or the face we present to the world. That’s a challenging statement to accept. For it is far easier for me to buy new clothes or do some painting than to cultivate and sustain real change in my thoughts an actions.
Perhaps this coming week we can shift some of our home-improvement / reorganization time to self-improvement. Think how much better we might be collectively once we emerge from our mandated cocoons if we all make progress on ourselves.