Cleaning House

I paid for that day of laziness two days ago.....one always does in the end. I was ready to settle down for day 2 of letting the happy bathroom microbes proliferate and hobnob with the dust blowing cheerfully about the livingroom while I read my book, when the phone rang. Dear son Matt and his lovely bride- to- be were making an unexpected trip and would be there tonight...was that ok? I glanced around at the negelected home, with its collection of disordered surfaces and floors speckled with grass clippings that the dog had shed throughout his meanderings from room to room.
"Absolutely!" I cried, "We'd love to have you."
"Don't go to any trouble," he said, "We can fend for ourselves."
"Ok," I said, and as soon as I turned off the phone, I raced to Asherel's room.
"Hop to it!" I shouted, "Matt and Karissa are coming. You need to clean your room, vacuum, and then dust!" Then I swirled away to go attack the bathrooms. So much for laziness. Together we dusted, vacuumed, scrubbed, did dishes...Sweat dripped from my forehead as I tackled  sheet changing, laying out bathroom towels, shining, arranging, organizing. Arvo was given a long grocery list and shooed away from his Sunday paper.

Asherel had gone with a friend to a huge youth group in a palatial church that morning. I was told they would be done at 12 and to wait for her in the back of the sanctuary. We had attended the service in that sanctuary which has 5 stories of seats and was filled with something like 5,000 people. I'd never been in such an enormous church.  But now, at 12, I crept back into the chapel and it was empty. That vast place of worship that had reverberated with 5,000 voices lifted in worship and song that morning, was now silent.

I sat in a back pew, and looked out the huge floor to ceiling window. I thought of the message that morning. A large portion of it had been a celebration of their church members sponsoring the translation of the Bible for the Subu people in Ethiopia. One of the Subu people was a guest speaker, and held the new Bible aloft as though it were a tiara of diamonds. We did a lot of standing ovations. This was not a church for lazy people, or for those who faint if they stand up too quickly. But the message that stuck with me as I sat in the vast, silent sanctuary, the only seat filled of 5,000 empty ones, was ,"We are not to compromise, or reach truth by consensus. You don't find Truth by consensus. We should not 'fit in' to the culture, we should transform it."

I totally agree with that sentiment. You don't settle in darkness when you are the only one with a flashlight. You light the way. There will certainly be people who scream that, a.) who gave you the right to proclaim light better than darkness, and b.) what narcissistic, arrogance to think you should be holding the only light.

There are so many areas in life that it is easier to just let the overwhelming tide of group consensus sweep away what you know to be good, to be righteous. It feels like fighting the decadence in our culture is like standing all alone with ridiculous, out dated morals. It is not unlike doing battle with a house that has slowly disintegrated in the wake of a year too busy with homeschool, Science Olympiad, volunteer, and paid work elsewhere. I looked around at the huge empty church, the silence like a universe holding its breath.
One seat filled, one soul watching the world outside that towering window whirl by, thinking about how best to reach out and touch it, maybe even spin it the other way.

As I gave Asherel another job, I promised her it would be the last one. The house was almost clean. She said, "Why Mom? They won't care."
"No, but I will," I said.

Romans 12:2 (New International Version)

² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Job 28:5 (New International Version)

⁵ The earth, from which food comes,
   is transformed below as by fire;