Taking Out the Trash

I’ve noticed that my wife takes out the garbage… well, except occasionally, now.  I used to have this task, but I think she didn’t appreciate that I just did it before I went to bed… like at 11 or 11:15pm.  She likes it done in the evening, like after dinner, like before we settle into the evening.  She likes it off her mind.

It wasn’t that it was off my mind.  But she and I think differently aboutthings.  She likes to get things donebefore she rests.  I like to get thingsdone in the course of moving from one thing to the next.  So, it can appear that the clothes on thefloor will be staying there for a while, but, really, they’re only stayingthere until I’m moving past them toward the hamper… at some point.  Which is like the garbage… or closing up thegrill… or putting all the tools away in the garage… or putting the dishes awayfrom the dishwasher… or blowing the leaves off the driveway… or… well, she andI think differently.  It’s not that thesethings are off my mind.  They just haven’tlined up with the course of my day at that moment.

I’m not sure why that’s not reasonable, but, in any case…she takes out the trash now… except occasionally.

Which makes me think about my soul.  Taking out the garbage in my soul is somethingthat should be done more in my wife’s kind of timing and not mine.  When I think about garbage in my soul, Ithink mostly about bitterness.

Bitterness is the gristle of anger.  You know, that chewy, tough, salty, piece ofgunk that just feels good as you play with it. You can find it in the jaws of your memory and just gnaw away and itdoesn’t really go away.  There’s nobenefit, nothing nutritional about it. It just has this salty, briny flavor that seems appropriate, satisfyingand it will last as long as you want. Which, for someone with my nature, can be for a long time.

I can find and start chewing my gristly bitterness as I’m starting to fall asleep, or when I wake in the middle of the night, or as I day dream over breakfast or lunch or tea or between tasks or instead of tasks or when I’m explaining why life isn’t fair to a friend or to my steering wheel as I drive.  I’m not getting rid of it.  I’m making use of it.  Like Worry, I’m pretending I’m doing something. I’m using it to thicken my fantasies of what I could have said, could have done, should do, watch for my chance to… just to damage another person the way I feel they’ve damaged me.

And that’s where the Holy Spirit comes by and asks, “Yaready to spit that out, yet?”  Seems likethe Spirit thinks more like my wife.  Infact, I do notice that God says, “let me take out the garbage…” It’s that,“I’ve got the handle on vengeance” thing. (Deuteronomy 32:35; Romans 12:17-19).

So, I’m working on taking out the trash… well, really letting God take out the trash in a more reasonable, regular fashion.

Blessings (they’re all around us),Geoff