By Robin Volker

We clean our houses and cars.  We clean our dishes and linens.  We clean our clothes and closets.  Have you ever thought to clean your consciousness? 

Unity in Community recently had a huge, gigantic yard sale.   For several weeks before the sale, we collected "stuff" from people all over Central Ohio.  All this "stuff" was stored in the Community Room in the basement of the church.   By the time the yard sale dates were upon us, the Community Room was piled high and wide with "stuff."   ("Stuff" is a nice way as saying "junk.")  When the first day of the yard sale arrived, a team of volunteers began early at 6:00 a.m. bringing all this stuff out of the basement to be set up in the parking lot.   It was a major undertaking.  And the more we carried out, the more stuff there was to bring out.  Those boxes and bags seemed to multiply as we worked.  Finally, all the stuff was now outside, and the Community Room once again had potential to be the beautiful multi-use room it was intended to be.

It occurred to me that our consciousness can become like the Community Room before the yard sale.  Can you see the similarity?  The Community Room was all cluttered, disorganized, and piled high of discards and keepsakes.   There was no room to move.  There was no air circulating.  The room was hot and stuffy, and creativity and life had withered.  Then we opened the back door and began to carry out the accumulation.  Box by box, piece by piece, it all came out.  Sometimes we would stop and finger a particular piece that held a memory or attraction.  Some things were best not even viewed, just moved out to clear the space.  This was a process.  It didn't just happen.  It took work. It was hard work- hot, tiring, sweaty, dirty work.  

Our consciousness needs a good cleaning out, just like an overfilled basement.  This activity is helpful in restoring our consciousness to health and wholeness.  Our consciousness is the junction point where the inflow of Spirit and the results, feelings, and memories of our physical life come together.  Mind (or consciousness) is in the middle between Spirit and body.  If the mind is all cluttered up, then we become overly focused on the accumulation of feelings, memories, fears, and failures.  There is no room for Spirit in our mind.  What do we do?  

Piece by piece, bit by bit, we begin to examine and remove thoughts and feelings that do not serve anymore.  We have a housecleaning, a mental yard sale.  We examine left-over feelings from broken relationships.  We do our forgiveness work.  We release attachments and expectations around other people in our lives.   We step forth with the courage to change those things that we know are ours to change and accept the things we cannot change without blame, shame, or guilt. 

Through this work, we can find a path through the piles of clutter in our mind.   Amazingly, we then notice that Spirit is present with us as we do this important work.  The cluttered spaces begin to feel lighter and happier.  There is an infilling of holy peace and power, a Light comes physically into the room.  We look around.  There is still clutter here.  There is still work to be done, but now there is hope.  With this new Light of God within our minds, we now are able to begin to see what to keep and what to get rid of.  The sorting process doesn't feel so painful and hopeless. It has purpose and promise.  The cleaning of our consciousness is like cleaning out the basement.  It is a one-box-at-a-time endeavor.  It is a one-piece-at-a-time task.  It is necessary.  It is vital.  Otherwise we become self-absorbed among the collection of our discarded feelings, our incomplete relationships, our molded fears and broken dreams. 

Namaste`

Rev. Robin