In a previous post I talked about folding clothes with scissors…meaning I keep a pair handy to clip fraying edges and stray threads on my decades-old towels. But there does come a time when I can no longer legitimately call a piece of cloth a towel. As soon as I change its job description to “rag,” it gets stuffed into an overflowing basket in a bottom cupboard behind the door in my laundry room.
The problem is, who uses 64 rags in a week? When I do laundry, there are usually 4 or 5 dirty rags, depending on how ambitious I felt in the preceding seven days. The other 57 are simply…this is hard to admit…useless. In fact, they are worse than useless. They are taking up space I could be using for something I actually use. Plus, every time I open that cupboard, a few fall out. And I can never find my favorite rags because they are mixed in with all the rest.
Does your brain ever feel like a rag basket? Mine does. Somebody offends me and I stuff the hurt. Something doesn’t work and I can’t fix it, so I stuff my frustration. The way this world seems to be spinning out of control scares me, but I don’t want to constantly dwell on it, so I stuff it. The problem is, those things don’t stay where they put them. They fall out, get in my way, keep me from being as productive as I want to be.
So how do we sort through all that stuffed stuff? How do we purge the things we don’t need or want so we can move on to enjoy the freedom of being mental minimalists? King David found a way. Instead of stuffing, he laid all his hurts, shame, fears, and frustrations right out in the light before God: “All my longings lie open before you, Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes. My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds; my neighbors stay far away.”(Psalm 38:9-11) “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!” (Psalm 51:1-2)
And then, once he’d purged out all the stuff he didn’t want, he filled that space with things that belonged there: “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.” Psalm 40:1-3
Well, I’m off to purge that rag basket…and do some mental housecleaning while I’m at it. Care to join me?