Getting your House in Order

My term finished last week and it has been a crazy week, trying to get the house in order before flying to France on vacation. It began with tidying and cleaning and then progressed. These last two days a company has been fitting new fascias and soffits to the outside of the house. The house got covered in scaffolding. There were little troubles along the way, like a broken manhole cover and then a bigger problem, the discovery of two wasps nest under the roof – at which point the two men downed tools until I called out pest-control and two more men, looking like Ghostbusters, arrived to sort the problem… But I was on task, and focused, and I got it sorted every time there was a problem.

And then I reflected – is my spiritual house in order? How easy it is to get my physical house in order – and ignore my spiritual house. My home would have the work done ready for my vacation; but actually I already was on vacation from God, not a good place to be… So in the noise of the banging and sawing and whistling and crashing I found time for God and reflected on how I was stewarding this time and my treasure. A friend of mine who works for a different diocese is not using her car for two weeks and is walking the 16 mile return to work for the children of Anjara. Each day she maps her walk and shares her prayer on that walk on Facebook. What a great piece of evangelisation; what a great witness.

So today I prayed with her on that walk – at a distance of 200 miles – for the priest of that community in Anjara and for the children – that they learn that they are loved. It was easy to sponsor her – to support her in terms of treasure – but this is a more holistic approach and my real home – with God is getting sorted.