morning light

there is a time of day when the morning light shines through the windows of my house and it looks particularly dirty. the smudges on the glass panes seem smudgier and the spots on the berber carpet are clearly more pronounced. dust particles the size of cottonballs can be seen floating through the air. do you know this time of day? please put to rest my domestic insecurities and tell me your house also manifests a little filth come the unforgiving rays of those early hours.  in the twilight of evening everything can seem so unmarred. so flawless. but with the direct injection of morning light... voila...dirt! i would much rather host an evening soiree than a mid-morning coffee in my home. an entirely different level of cleaning is required. shafts of light are a good thing. a pretty thing. even a poetic thing.  but not necessarily flattering to a house occupied by 6 humans and 5 animals. i am rather fond of the granite in our kitchen, partly because i like the organic quality and natural color scheme, but mostly because it is an excellent source of camouflage for our syrup-stickied, jelly-smeared, cheet-o-ridden lifestyle. connor can color off the lines of his paper...and it is okay. my coffee cup can slosh carelessly over the sides and all is well. rice krispies can escape from their bowl and it is just fine. it is not just fine because it is clean. it is just fine because i cannot see it.  a-ha! that is the trick to survival of the dirtiest 101. sweep it under the rug, kick it under the bed, heave it quickly into a closet, coax it into a corner, slam it into a bulging drawer. THAT, my friends, is the secret of serenity.  i have even been known to hide things in my oven. a second oven in the kitchen for dirty dish storage is certainly a good idea while entertaining. a good idea until an unsuspecting friend decides to warm up her cheese dip.  i am not talking complete subterfuge here. i will most willingly admit my tricks. my shortcuts. my clever angles. there is no sense of false pretense in my housekeeping. come on over, i will openly share my shameful areas...well, most of them, that is. there once was a day when i might not have been so transparent. i have experienced the embarrassment of a dinner guest opening up the wrong closet. the hazardous closet. the closet where everything, including the never used bowling ball, came dangerously tumbling out.  she was completely gracious.  i was completely mortified. lately my refrigerator is an acute source of shame. i just can't seem to get to it. things sit. grow moldy. achieve unprecedented levels of grossness. i remember being slightly disgusted with my own mother and her refrigerator. back when i was young and perfect and childless.  i remember finding containers and wondering to myself how does this even happen? i have seen glimpses of that same look on my own daughter's teenaged face. she has not yet verbalized it, but i can read her thoughts, and it is only a matter of a few more hormones before she will vent her amazement and disgust. this is our own female circle of life.  how crazy that it includes a refrigerator.
so what is this writing really about? dirty things? hidden things? the things we ignore? yes, probably all of that and then some. it is most definitely about those shafts of light. it is about the sunshine that can stream through the windows of our lives exposing the floating dust particles; revealing those smudges and stains. i am not saying that we WANT to see them. i am only writing that it is a necessary part in our growth. actually, it is pretty safe to say, all of us love the sunshine.  most of us have that cat like nature which finds unbelieveable comfort in curling up in a stream of warmth - as long as we keep our eyes closed, that is.  i, for one, am happy to shut my eyes and pretend, every now and then. oh, as a mother of four, i have gotten downright good at mastering the whole look-the-other-way thing. i have yet to use my convection oven correctly, but i can certainly manage a little escapism.  i regularly can't seem to find the grocery list i started or the car keys i just had, but i am well aware of all the mind-numbing exits available.  you chuckle, because you, too, know. i am not writing that a little avoidance is entirely a bad thing.  in fact, i believe that God has even given some of us dreamers an extra dose of it. it is what allows us to revel in the smell of good coffee, notice the tiny buds on spring trees, appreciate the color of a weathered blue shutter.  but, just as there is that specific time of morning when the sun streams through my dirty windows, God also has specific times for revealing the filthy corners of our lives.  matthew, mark and luke all repeat the words of Jesus, "for whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open." He asks, "do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed?  see, He is clearly addressing women here. He knows we are masters at manipulating our lighting. remember blanche, from tenessee williams', a streetcar named desire? in addition to having some really ugly corners she wished to hide, she was aging quickly and incredibly vain. what did she do? she covered all of her lamps with rose colored cloth. she darkened the corners.  she softened her wrinkles and sagging skin. or so she thought. don't we do that same thing in our lives? Jesus is telling us to take those lamps out from underneath the cloths, the bowls, the beds. He says, "instead, don't you put it on its stand?" the love and power of Jesus will not be revealed in our lives if we do not let His Light Shine On In. that will mean at times, throwing wide open the shutters and welcoming the harsh, brutal and revealing light. we may wince. we may blush. we may swallow hard. but we will eventually experience the warmth and growth and clean that only He, The Light of the World, can bring.