Be Still and Know - Day 27

Today I cleaned out my refrigerator.
Wow. When was the last time I did that? Um... don't remember.

Today I cleaned out my refrigerator.
An unknown, really awful, putrid, stinky something made me do it.

Today I cleaned out my refrigerator.
And I saw myself.

I saw how the shelves at eye-level were pretty clean and organized. That's the part I clean out once every couple of weeks or so, when the left overs get to be too many and have to be thrown out. That's the part that you see when you open the fridge a dozen times a day. BUT that wasn't the part where the smell came from.

The smell came from something down in the bottom, forgotten, rotten, reeking. That's the part you don't see. That's the part you can ignore - until the rotten funk finally screams out at you. That's the part that maybe you get to cleaning out once a year, or longer if you're me.

I could have chosen to leave that thing rotting down there. But pretty soon the refrigerator would be useless for it's purpose of keeping our food fresh. Pretty soon none of us would want to open the fridge... So, I tackled that awful job today.

Two hours, three sinks-full of pine sol and water, five rags, and one wet mess all over my kitchen was what it took. Whew, what a task!

But now it's clean and smelling fresh once again! Wonder how long it will stay that way? Maybe I should think about more regular fridge-cleaning maintenance.

I'm like my refrigerator. I take care to clean out the stuff on the surface and the stuff that's accessible by others on a daily basis. I look pretty clean and smell okay when people look at me - just at eye-level. But sometimes there's something rotting down below inside of me. When it's way past time for me to deal with it, it begins to smell, to remind me that it's there. And if I don't deal with it, it will drive away others, and eventually ruin my purpose. So, before I let that awful funk run amok, I've got to clean out and clean up!

That's what daily meditation has begun to do for me. No longer can something unsightly go unnoticed. When I'm in meditation, it's amazing how things pop up. It's not always pretty. But the cleansing process is necessary and good. Allowing for daily refreshing and refining is much, much better than waiting until the rotten mess spews out onto others and clean-up is messy and takes forever.

There you go... How's that for an analogy?
I may never look at my refrigerator the same way again.

Oh, and to those of you who clean out your whole fridge regularly, don't judge... just try to go with the metaphor. :)