Trash

Ever feel like you just need to go out and pick up your trash? My dad used to make his way to our back garage door, slowly picking up the random trash that had littered our front and side yard. He would finish his run at the end of our street, then collect the lids or sticks or little plastic pieces that might have blown out of the garbage cans (or been strewn by the dogs?) into the grass. I found myself doing the same thing the other day, as I walked to our front door. Just picking up the loose ends. Little pieces that are not consequential in their own rights, but together, make for an unsightly welcome.

And, my English major mind couldn't help but compare it to life. There I was, picking up the garbage. And people do it everyday, all the time. Don't we do it with our literal selves, too? Sometimes, it's just what is required. We have to go out, or go in, and pick up the unnecessaries, the things that have gotten in the way, the things that have littered our soul or our heart or our mind and recycle the heck out of them.

We heard this past week at a MOPS meeting of women and mothers searching to be better and kinder and simpler and smarter (and a million other things) that we must learn, as St. Paul preached, to be content. To seek it out and cling to it. Not settling for, but settling in. That idea helped me breathe this week. It helped me relax around the clutter or annoyances or mistakes or shortcomings and find contentment. This is not my strong suit--it's genetic, actually. That guy who picked up the trash--yeah, not a content, settled individual. :) He passed it on to me, though in a milder version, like Crystal Light. Maybe, hopefully, my kids will be normal? So, I must seek and want to be content. And it's hard, for there is always, always trash in the yard.