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Cleaning Up - Not something to done by ourselves when the cleaning is of our hearts and minds.
Even dirt-floor huts need to be cleaned up, perhaps by sweeping but certainly by washing whatever is used for cooking and eating. Those of us with more material things and space to put them in might well have a greater need for cleaning up our living and working areas than people with less, because everything that is physical in nature becomes soiled in some ways. When we clean, it is partially to maintain a healthy environment.
From another perspective, we have a slang expression of “cleaning up our act,” which conveys a truth about taking care of our spiritual health. No soap, brushes, or soil-removers are required, but water is often employed as a tangible symbol for cleansing whatever has been soiled of our habits, attitudes, and ways of relating with God and people. Through our choices, and not through the passing of time or exposure to physical dirt and dust, we become in need of cleaning up some specific ways of thinking, speaking, and acting.
It is in the ideas that we consciously entertain, and in what we say and do, that the content of our hearts is revealed. When we reflect on these interior movements with honesty, we can sense with reasonable accuracy just where we need to begin cleaning up our acts. This is the easier part. Making changes to our behavior, especially if we have developed some adverse habits of mind, attitudes towards life, and ways of relating with people and with God, we might find the prospect quite daunting. Restoring our spiritual health on our own would be like trying to sing a duet all by ourselves.
We are created as unique individuals, but always interdependent with others, and never outside or beyond the abiding presence of God. In our striving to obtain better balance, improved decision-making, or a more loving way of moving through life, we have much more help available than we might realize. Some of the cleaning agents we can use are as readily accessible as Scriptures, spiritual books, and especially faith-sharing groups and faith communities. For some, a spiritual guide is an option. For those who are baptized with water and spirit, awareness of the meaning of their relationship with Christ guides them. For all, the one who is most interested in our desires to clean up our act is the same one who, whether through something we saw or heard or simply through gentle inspiration, initiated those desires.
God, loving us from within and through all of creation, is the ever-present power for good who accompanies us in all our movements toward true improvement in the way we reason, how we relate with our feelings, and in the very process of making decisions.
Cleaning up of heart and mind is not a solitary task but is, with God, a loving process that leads to our fulfilment in complete union with God.
Last Updated 4/11/2026