The Cobweb of Confession

It all starts so innocently.

At home on a Monday with the sun shining in just at the right time, I catch a glimpse of a solitary strand of cobweb up on the top of one of the kitchen cupboards.  My casual flick of the dishcloth doesn't quite take care of it.  So I go to fetch the step ladder.

Later I will identify this my first fatal error.

Up just that one step higher, I realize with a small remembrance of 'housewife guilt' (yes, I'm from that era) that there is actually quite a collection of cob webs up here.  As I trace my eye across the top of the entire kitchen, I try to recall the last time this kitchen had a top-to-bottom cleaning, and feel shame.  Not that much shame, because I'm hardly the only one who lives here, and it's not like I haven't been otherwise unoccupied, and after all there hasn't been that much sunshine when I've actually been home to notice it before this, and at least I've already started cleaning the windows for spring.  So not that much shame.

But enough to climb all the way up and get those wispy guilt-trippers.

Later I will identify this as my second fatal error.

I will not fully describe what I discover once at the top of the cupboard, for two reasons.  One, I want to respect those readers who have a more sensitive stomach.  Two, the shame thing again.  It's enough to report that now that I am up on the counter itself, I am suddenly motivated to do some hard core spring cleaning, right here, right now!

Moving preciously up and down the ladder a few times, I arm myself with rubber gloves, cleaner and a rag that I fully intend to throw out at the end of the mission.  I clean just one section.  It takes all morning.  I feel tired in my arms like I know it's going to hurt tomorrow.

When it's done I make a cup of tea and survey my work.  Other than the absence of that one initiating cobweb, there is no evidence whatsoever of my efforts.  None.  I sip my tea and contemplate life's futility.  The cupboard looks exactly as it did when I started.

But it is clean.  It's a hidden clean, but it's clean!

And then this metaphor.

Because the kitchen isn't the only area of my life I've been hard core cleaning these days.  I have an office to move.  I have files to purge and organize.  I have a ministry to hand over in good order.   And as I start with the small things, like a cob web that strangely looks like a stapler, or an office chair, or some commentaries, I am led deeper into places of my soul that I thought were okay, but to my dismayed surprise are not.  I realize that there are dark corners of my psyche and soul on which, despite my self-illusion that I live a totally surrendered life, greasy layers have taken a grimy grasp. 



Hidden places.

The psalmist prays a dangerous prayer.

"Search me, God, and know my heart,
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting."
Psalm 139:23-24

The virgin makes a dangerous agreement.

"I am the Lord's servant.
Be it done to me as you have said."
Luke 1:38

And there's nothing for it but to lay it all down again.
The only fatal error being NOT getting up on that ladder to see.
Do the hard work of it until my arms and my heart hurt.
Clean out the hidden places that have been neglected.
Get this back to the top.
Receive the forgiveness and mercy that obliterates the shame.
And live free of it.


Because any other life is futile.

All or nothing, Jesus, just like you did for me.