Dear  Reader:

I remember a childhood friend telling me one day that we couldn’t go to her house to play because her mom was on a “mission from God” (as she called it) spring cleaning…and she couldn’t be interrupted or the mission would all fall apart!

As a child I didn’t understand what my friend was telling me about her mother…but now as an adult, mother, and grandmother…I do. Once I get in the cleaning mode…I, too, go into my “zone” and become almost fanatic in my cleaning zeal!

I don’t answer the phone, doorbell, or even stop to eat….I just clean! If I ever plop down, out of sheer exhaustion…the “zone” and “moment” is gone….no more heavy cleaning until the next calling….the next “mission from God.”

It is, also, strange what “catalysts” can initiate this cleaning tornado. Yesterday…it was the pretty mason jar of flowers that Kaitlyn decorated and made for me. I had put the jar of sunflowers on the little table coming into the “Happy Room” and as soon as I walked into the room yesterday morning….a ray of sunlight was shooting through the slats in the shutters.

It was so pretty that I immediately started picking up clothes, paper cups/plates, books, etc. on the furniture surrounding it. As I dropped a spoon cleaning up…I noticed that the floor needed sweeping. As I dropped the spoon into the kitchen sink…I realized the dirty dishes needed to be put in the dishwasher and the cabinets scrubbed down.

I, then, thought how nice it would smell if the kitchen floor were washed…and I had one load of clothes waiting to be washed also. I started picking up dirty towels and washcloths and observed that the bathroom sink and tub could use some scrubbing.

I then went out to feed Lucy and saw where the deck needed sweeping again. So I got the blower from the garage and went at it.

Then I started watering some plants and realized that I needed to plant the two new day lilies…only to discover that briars and other weeds were taking over that patch of ground on the side of the house…so I went and got my garden gloves and started pulling and hacking away.

As of yesterday afternoon (right before the thunderstorm) this is how the side looked (weed and briar-less) with the two new pale yellow lilies. I did get a “happy return” on my hard work.)

I came in to get some water, plopped down in the rocking chair…and the “mission” was done. No more…I was hot, tired, and hungry…but also happy, pleased, and proud of my accomplishments… all because one personally decorated mason jar of bright, yellow sunflowers, sitting on a little pretty table, inspired me to clean the rest of my house and yard. To keep it all “clean and pure.”

“Clean and pure“….where was that thought coming from…and then I remembered …it was an old Russian fable told around Easter time each year…but obviously, the message works year round.

Source: “The White Lily”- Jane Tyson Clement (Adapted from Frances Jenkins Olcott and illustrated by Hannah Marsden-magazine -Plough)

Once upon a time there was a Russian peasant named Ivan. Ivan lived in a little hut beside a little garden. He had a dog named Rubles and a six year old orphaned nephew named Peter.

Now Ivan wasn’t a bad man, in the sense that he stole or murdered or anything like that…but he wasn’t a good man either. He was always cross, dirty, seldom spoke, was not friendly to the neighbors and never invited anyone inside his hut. So soon the neighbors left him alone, like he wished.

His watch dog Rubles was terrified of him and was only given the barest of scraps because he kept watch over the house and the hens from the foxes..

Poor little six year old Peter was so lonely. He had no friends because everyone was scared of his uncle Ivan and didn’t dare get close to the house. Like Rubles…he, too, only got scraps to eat and was never praised for doing anything to help out.

The hut was filthy…dirty dishes and pots and pans smelled up the house. The debris from many meals stayed scattered on the table until it became absolutely necessary to wash a pot or pan in order to cook.

Poor Peter’s hair was a tangled mess…he never took a bath because his uncle wouldn’t allow him that much water…his clothes were dirty, smelly, and tattered…just like his uncle’s…and he learned how to become invisible to this uncle who terrified him.

Peter’s hope never died, however, that one day something would happen to turn this nightmare around…perhaps with spring on the horizon something good would happen.

It was in early March that Ivan left the hut, one day, to get some beans for them to eat in town. As usual, he kept his head down and looked at no one passing by…(probably best…since everyone edged over, on the road, as far as possible, when they spotted him and held their noises until he passed.) 

But on this day he spotted a stranger coming towards him…out of curiosity he saw that the young man, tall and lean wearing clean peasant clothes, held a staff in one hand and a sheaf of white lilies in the other. Even from a distance…the lilies were dazzling to the eye. 

Ivan wanted to look down but the stranger held his eyes in contact with his…the following conversation ensued. 

“Good day, friend.”

When there was only silence, with Ivan staring, the stranger spoke again, “What is it you see?”

Ivan lifted his eyes then to the man’s face. The light there was like the lilies, and he looked at them again.

“Those flowers…I never saw any so fair.”

“One of them is yours,” said the stranger. 

“Mine?” said Ivan. 

The stranger took one of them and offered it to Ivan, who with astonishment and unbelief exclaimed, “What do you want for it? I am just a poor man.”

” I want nothing in return, only that you should keep the flower clean and pure.”

Ivan wiped his dirty hands on his coat and reached for the lily. It was so beautiful it seemed to bring light to everything around it. When he looked up…the stranger was gone. 

Once inside his house…he realized that the lily was too beautiful for the dingy hut. Peter, stunned by its beauty, got up the courage to speak to his uncle and ask “Where did you find it?”

Ivan told Peter what the stranger had told him and then directed him to do…”Keep the flower clean and pure.”

Ivan realized that both their hands were too dirty to touch it and one old wine bottle too filthy to put it in…so quickly he ordered both of them baths and pulled out some old but clean clothes he found in a closet. 

They then cleaned all the dirty dishes, pots and pans and especially the wine bottle which would hold the lily. Then they washed the window and window sill where the shining flower would sit. 

When Rubles walked in…Ivan grabbed the dog and washed him too and while placing him back outside realized that the garden needed much weeding and repair…so he and Peter worked together to clean it out. 

Ivan was so proud of his lily and house now he invited the neighbors to come see it and re-tell the story of the stranger over and over. On the seventh day it vanished. 

There was never a trace of it to be found…yet everyone’s lives had been transformed. When Ivan looked at Peter’s face, he thought:

“The lily glows there still.” When he saw the clean pure house and how he and Peter now spoke with love and praise to each other, how they now greeted their neighbors, and tended to the growing things in the new garden, both Peter and Ivan thought to themselves, “The lily still lives, though we see it no longer.”

……………………………..

So until tomorrow…Whether we own a large or meager amount of “stuff”…we must take pride in our homes, yards, or gardens…because our homes reflect the way we see ourselves and our relationship with God…to keep the “flower clean and pure.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* I was working on the blog when the thunderstorm came out of nowhere early yesterday afternoon…the lights flickered just enough to shut down everything…the television and computer.

Apparently the bulbs in the overhead light where I work went out permanently and I had no replacements but I looked on my desk in the “Happy Room” and there was Evans Townsend’s train lantern…ready for just such an emergency!

I like it so much…it will stay and I will just let the overhead light fixture stay “frozen.”