Is Cleanliness Next to Godliness?

Exploring the fine line between obsession and worship

My house is so clean. It feels holy. It feels purified of the unfinished cycles and the broken circles — what I really want to say is when people pay attention, pay attention to what they’re doing, it makes me feel safe.

If they can see their trail and attend to it, then life doesn’t hurt the same. I can accept that hurt will come, the inevitability of it, but the pain that comes from not paying attention breaks in me so much worse.

I have a sense that the world feels everything, the trace of a finger, a drop of water hitting the kitchen tile, the crookedness of the blinds.

Some may think this is insanity, but to me it is prayer. It is the exquisite tiny effort to know all things. It is the announcement, “I am here.”

It is the offering, “I see you.”

Some people say they feel more at home in disorder. For me this is foreign soil, good for a visit but not necessarily where I want to live.

And yet, what I really long for is both connection and safety. Dusting empty halls is not the same as laughing children, clinking glasses, sleeping bodies tangled together in the darkened night.

I have yet to learn how to have all things.

Perhaps I start with this. I feel the world. Please take care. Where are you? Join me here, in this moment. Stay awake. Follow your cycles of doing until they reach their end.

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