Dirty Laundry Confessions

I think I want to hire an organization agent-or maybe a clutter consultant. Our home is full of clutter. Every single room.

If you were to come into our home you might exclaim "OH MY GOD! YOU'VE BEEN ROBBED!" Nope-that's just how we keep things most of the time.

Our kitchen looks disgusting, smells bad, our bedrooms are all strewn with clothing on the floor, on the beds, under the beds, a mixture of clean and dirty. We will even have clothing that is clean and dirty on the floor until we don't know what's clean and what's dirty and so we just throw it down the laundry chute to the basement to be washed again-and begin the process all over again.

It comes down to having too much and a lack of time management. We are obscenely wealthy in terms of possessions-this I mean in comparison with most of the world not compared to say the Hilton family, or even the richest people in Springfield OH.

I bet we could clothe, provide toys and books, and perhaps even feed an entire preschool and kindergarten class without straining the resources of what is currently in our home at this very moment. In fact if you looked through some of the piles in our house I bet you might even find some of the children whose faces they used to put on milk cartons. Do they even have milk cartons any more? Where do you put a picture of a missing milk carton?

This of course is all partly because my wife and I work full time. Sarah works theoretically 37 hours a week. Rarely does she work less than 40 now. Which is good for the bank account-lousy for our house. Not that she cleans. Sarah and I both are identical in our behavior when it comes to house cleaning-but from vastly different backgrounds.

Sarah's mother is a pack rat and Sarah has followed suit. I mentioned throwing out a futon that is downstairs in our basement and she said "Oh I don't know we just need a new mattress for it"-this is a piece of furniture we stored for her brother for four years now. She has never sat on it or used it to my knowledge more than once. Her brother has never asked for again-and we don't use it for anything but a dumping ground for guess what? More stuff.

I on the other hand come from a mother who would wipe crumbs off of the floor immediately after they'd fallen from whatever you happened to be eating at the time. We were encouraged to eat food over the sink or use a plate-even for a single cookie. This of course hearkens back to the old days I used to eat a single cookie.

My mom was so bad that if you put a glass down while you were still in the midst of finishing the drink often when you went to pick it back up the glass would already be in the dishwasher or the sink to be washed. It was sort of like the Flash in the comic strips only instead of running fast to prevent criminal activity it was a super fast obsessive compulsive cleaner. What would would her superhero name be? How about instead of the Swiffer-the SWIFTER!

So rather than conform to this extreme I chose to go the opposite route. I clean in spurts of extreme exertion a few times a month rather than in small steps.

So the ongoing result is that our house resembles a tornado stricken land fill or garbage barge. I'm being too mild about it to use such language. Compare the way of trying to describe it to the way in which we attempt to describe God. We can't contain God no matter how many words we use to describe God-so the best approach is to use as many words as possible to describe God-then we can approach at least a BIT more closely to grasping the great vastness that is the Creator of the Universe who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

The same is true when attempting to describe our mess at home. Words also cannot contain the extent to which our home is a depository for clutter. It obviously doesn't bother me or I'd take steps to change it-and I have-it's just that breaking up with those bad habits is hard to do.

I've had to change to make the mornings a bit easier. Without SOME sense of order the morning is longer. You find yourself unable to find two matching socks for two different little girls, or the other shoe to the pair, or the lunchbox, or keys, or book bag, or homework or library book. Then after spending all that time to get ready I end up driving faster than most Nascar professionals to reach the school on time. Then I rush back home and repeat the process for my getting ready for the day.

It feels sort of like a roller coaster that lasts for forty minutes only its not fun and there are no photos you can buy afterward. I do feel nauseous afterward though. So I declare that I will change and that I can choose to change.

If I don't choose to do so then maybe I should stand in line for an hour before I get ready for the day, have Sarah charge me ten dollars for breakfast so I could get the whole amusement park feel. Who knows?

All I know is that if we don't organize something soon-the inner obsessive compulsive whose voice I've quieted for nine years of marriage is going to burst out of my chest and begin cleaning. By then it will be too late-I will begin to clean and not stop until our home is empty of nearly all worldly possessions and clutter. Then I may actually begin sweeping our yard with a vacuum. It won't be pretty.

I hope you found it within yourself to be able to laugh at my pain....sniff...sniff...;-)

Gotta go now I think I see a foot poking out from behind a pile of towels in the corner. I can only pray its not too late for this one.

Dwight

Fantasy Sports

Hey there. Fantasy football time here in the United States of America.

It's time when all of us who like numbers on a screen indicating performance on a field of play can match our skill at choosing who is going to have the highest numerical value each Sunday and why that makes us have value as human beings.

Cynical way of looking at it. I enjoy fantasy football-sometimes baseball too.

In case you are not familiar with Fantasy sports it is when you field an imaginary team of athletes from the particular sport and place them on your imaginary roster. Then you keep track of their real life statistics during a specific game to come up with your "team" score. It is your fantasy team-hand chosen-to produce the best set of stats you can-to outscore your opponent for that week-who also has fielded a team.

It is because I have a fantasy football team that I can honestly say that I have imaginary friends.

I was thinking how it would be amusing to have fantasy Bible study. Choose biblical characters and score them according to their accomplishments vs. their sinfulness. For instance David gets negative points for having Bathsheba's husband murdered-but gets positive ones for inspiring some of the Psalms. Then we have teams made up of a prophet, two Hebrew Bible people, a disciples, and then maybe Jesus is the all time quarterback.

How many points would John the Baptist get docked for losing his head?

Would the Pharisees get penalized for their abuse of the rules?

Maybe if it was Bible fantasy study we could say a prayer before the games and all the right wingers would be happy-and we could take proceeds from the games and give them to justice projects in the area and that would make all the left wingers happy.

The concept of fantasy sports plays along with our desire to rank and rate things in the United States. Maybe because we all have some areas where we don't find self worth happens easily. And so we rank and rate so many facets of our world that it becomes the norm to judge rather than accept. This is against the basic truth of Christian faith-to love, to know we're loved, and to proclaim God's love.

Truth is our value is something given to us at birth-all of us have it-and we can choose to believe in it or not. Its there-and its infinitely more than we imagine it. Each person has value-no one more than another...although sometimes I think Jessica Alba comes close...all of us are precious in God's eyes.

No matter how we perform the Grace of God helps us be everything we are called to be.

Grace,
Dwight

The Jinx

Hey folks. I want to promote a book of one of my pastor friends.

Her name is Jennifer Johnson. She has just had her first book released. It's called The Jinx. It is a humorous and romantic tale of two people who even a case of bad luck couldn't keep apart.

Her book is a page turner and is available to download at http://www.thewildrosepress.com/

It's a bargain at $6.00 American and you can even use your Paypal account to download it.

Hurry to be in on the beginning of a promising writer's career. Enjoy!

Grace to you and yours,
Dwight