Russellings of the Spirit

Joan and I are now living the “staged life.”

And I really don’t like it. At all.

Here’s the deal; two weeks ago, we put our house on the market. We are in the process of doing what many retired folks before us have done… we are downsizing and moving to the mountains.

If you have gone through the house-selling exercise, you kind of know the drill. First, you go around and fix everything that needs fixing. You paint some walls, you redo that powder room, you clear all the wonderful, sentimental junk out of the basement and garage… either by donating it or pitching it.

And then… you meet with THE STAGER!

The stager is the person who goes through your house and makes it all pretty and presentable for all the potential buyers parading through your home.

The stager takes pictures from your bookshelves. They ruthlessly reduce the number of knick-knacks and doodads festooning your walls. They tell you to get rid of this chair and that bookend and to move that lamp from THERE to THERE.

The job of the stager is to look at your house through the eyes of a stranger and try to make it as impersonal and inviting as possible.

Often, to achieve the desired “show home” look, the seller (i.e., us) has to take junk from a countertop and shove it into a drawer, the garage, or inside a cabinet. To illustrate, I present here Exhibit A: the clean countertop in the first picture and then in the next picture, the junk-infested cabinet where everything got shoved.

Now Joan and I are not slovenly people. We do, however, occasionally leave dirty plates in the sink, Diet Coke cans on the kitchen counter, newspapers piled by the chair, and socks crumpled on the floor like most of the rest of you.

But when the bell rings and we find out that a prospective buyer wants to come look at the house, we kick into hyper-tidying mode and SWOOSH it all away.

What a pain.

It makes me wonder if I am ever guilty of “staging” my life in the eyes of God. That is to
say, do I ever try to shove all of the messy, flawed, imperfect, unsightly aspects of myself under the counter and pretend to be the human version of a “show home”?

Am I deluded enough to believe there is a garage big enough or a closet shelf high enough to squirrel away all of my defects and blemishes?

And do I honestly ever believe that God would look upon me the same way a prospective buyer looks at our house… going over it all with a magnifying glass and white gloves, searching for any possible defect that would justify a “thumbs down” decision?

Of course not. At least, I don’t think so.

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul made the utterly preposterous suggestion that being open and forthcoming about our flaws might actually draw us CLOSER to God… if you can believe that. He is on record saying, “…but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”(2 Corinthians 12:9-10, NRSV).

Say WHAAAAT?

And if that doesn’t make your head spin around enough, check out this nugget from James, Jesus’ kid brother: “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.”(James 5:16, NRSV).

Which sounds as if he is saying that it is not only OK but even healthy to let other people see the metaphorical “dirt” under my rugs.

So much to process… so very little grey matter with which to process it.

Cleanliness might be next to godliness when it comes to our homes and hands. But I am eternally grateful that God understands when I fail to bring him a spotless life.