Crushed cheerios on the floor. Sticky strings of spaghetti
on the chair. Flakes of parmesan on the table. The residue announces clearly,
“children ate here.” As I do on most nights, I sigh as I pick up the broom and
reach for the dustpan. Ughh.. Such a mess!
“Such a mess.” This refrain or some variation on this theme
sounds forth from many homes most days. Our lives are such a mess to clean up.
But sometimes, on rare occasions, the Holy Spirit infuses the mess with a sense
of divine clarity.
Tonight as I pushed those food bits into little piles, my
frustration ebbed a bit. I realized that mess is the proof that we are that we
are living. We come into this world in mess. I’ll never forget the words of the
midwives at the birth center almost seven years ago: “Having a baby here is
like having a baby at home except you don’t have to do the laundry.” No doubt
about it, birth is messy.
Our loved ones who have died leave behind all the pieces of
their life, sometimes in complete disarray. We are left to clean up the piles
of papers, drawers of clothes, food in the fridge, trinkets and so much other
stuff. The great sadness is that as we sort through a lifetime of belongings,
we discover that this person will not be present with us any longer in the messiness
of the every day. A cleaned out house seems unnatural. It can be unbearable.
In these days of vaults, space-capsule caskets and
full-service funeral homes, death seems less messy, but those who have
re-discovered “green” funeral
practices honor that death is messy; we become the dirt and dust, that
stuff we don’t want wiped onto our clean, swept floors. “Remember, that you are
dust and to dust you shall return.”
The Holy Spirit moment for me tonight was in the realization
that this God I try to believe in embraces the mess. It is holy mess, holy
ground. Kathleen Norris calls the this combination of the routine, mundane routine
and God’s presence "Quotidian
Mysteries." We think we need to
escape to the pristine mountain or the immaculate chapel to find God and yes,
God will be there, too. But what is truly amazing is God in the place we leas
expect: in a messy birth, in a tortured death, in an earthen tomb. For in a
mystery that still confounds me, God brings new life out of the mess. Next time I sigh, perhaps I’ll recall God’s
presence in those sighs too deep for words. Emmanuel — God with us, even and
most of all, in the ordinary, holy mess.
