Spring cleaning is a pattern so ancient and deep it’s incorporated into human faith practices. Scrubbing living spaces is an essential step to preparing for spring equinox celebrations in Iran, Thailand and China. For Orthodox Christians, the first week in Lent is “Clean Week,” which kicks off with “Clean Monday.” For Jewish people, Passover can’t start until every last crumb of leaven has been hunted down.
Spring certainly makes me want to fling open windows and clean from top to bottom. Whether life is going smoothly or bumping through a rough patch, I find a good deep clean to be healing and restoring.
I love Franciscan contemplative Richard Rohr’s phrase for the eternal pattern of change and transformation: “Order, Disorder, Reorder.” Could there be a better description of spring cleaning? Order, Disorder, Reorder. Life, Death, Resurrection. We enact this pattern again and again as we live our lives and clean our living spaces.
This message is excerpted from “Spring cleaning” by Anne E. Basye in the April 2021 Gather magazine. Today is the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.
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