Life is Like Trash Pickup

Did you ever notice how there is almost never a time without trash? On Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning the cat box is cleaned, the wastebasket contents gathered and all is deposited in the trash can, dragged to the alley well before the rumble of the city trucks in the next blocks signals the weekly pick-up. Oh, and this is recycling week, too, so the paper--newspapers and junk mail, drafts of reports and sermons--along with rinsed plastic containers and cereal boxes are in the bin. For one brief moment, a sigh of satisfaction. The mess is gone.

I walk through the living room on my way to dress for the day. Oh, no! There's the pile of discarded mail from yesterday next to my chair. And that pint of fuzzy berries still in the fridge. And, what's that? Feathers on the dining room rug? Naughty cat!

I suppose trash and litter is not a very attractive metaphor for life and work. It is apt, though, in describing what seem to be obstacles to the "real" work. As a parish priest, I look at my calendar and, horrors!, it is Friday again. Every day is Friday--supposedly my Sabbath day of rest, but again and again, there is the weekly e-newsletter to finish and Sunday morning just around the corner with its sermon simmering in my brain but not yet "soup." It's not the meetings, the trips to the hospital, the one-to-one encounters or drop-ins that make up the "trash." Those things are the ministry. No, it's the computer that slows way down or starts an unscheduled update when I'm in the midst of a report that needs to go out. The e-mail that I know is in my folder but eludes the search engine. The wireless printer that needs to be reconnected to the network every.single.day. The cellphone that loses its charge, and the charger is upstairs. The mobile device that flashes the message, "unable to retrieve messages at this time."

And I do not have young children anymore. Just me and two cats. How can we--I--make such a mess?  I'm certain I was far more tidy and organized when my house was full. When I was raising a family while working more than full time. I suppose it was the necessity of keeping some kind of order for all of us. Now, it is so easy to say."tomorrow is another day. It can wait." Yet I still get a little thrill when all of the trash is in the alley.