AN ALL-CLEAN LENT
" … Let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith; with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." - Hebrews 10:22
My grandmother observed the annual ritual of spring house-cleaning. Up came the rugs to be beaten outdoors, curtains washed" and stretched, windows and furniture polished, floors scrubbed, and every drawer and cupboard cleaned and straightened. My parents for many years did a similar ritual: washing walls and ceilings and curtains, cleaning rugs and carpets and upholstery, waxing furniture. I can still remember the fresh, clean aroma of a special cleaner "they purchased at Hudson’s. Before clean-burning furnaces, washers and dryers, and vacuum cleaners, spring cleaning was a necessary chore after the need for wood and coal stoves was past and warmer weather permitted more washing and drying outside. I have a 90-year-old friend who still cleans her house from top to bottom every spring! And I must admit I rather miss the feeling of satisfaction in having - at least briefly - an all clean house. As a major in Home Economics/Field Service at Albion College, I put together a sample hand-out booklet titled "AN "ALL" -CLEAN SPRING" promoting the cleaning product "ALL" for a senior project.
The Eastern Orthodox Church begins Lent on the Monday before Ash Wednesday when traditionally the faithful cleanse their souls by penance and scrub their cooking utensils clean to remove all -traces of meat and fat, which are forbidden during Lent. Before Passover many Orthodox Jews clean out all their kitchen cupboards, throwing away any forbidden foods and making sure all the dishes are clean and kosher.
"Spring-cleaning can also be psycho1ogical, a time-out to confront the emotional clutter that has accumulated in your mental closet. It's a time for introspection, a mid-course "correction for ordinary people "in ordinary stressful lives" (-Abigail Trafford, quoted in "Simple Abundance" by Susan Breathnack). Perhaps Lent should be a spring-cleaning - not of our wood and brick houses, but of our flesh and blood houses - out hearts, minds, and souls.
The psalmist writes, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin" (Psalm 51:2). On our Lenten journey, let's make time to do some internal spring cleaning and then let God take over.
"If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." -1 John 1:9
Noelle Landin
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