Thoughts on Order

Today I dumped the contents of my baskets everywhere searching for a bag of fabric birds my in-laws may or may not have left at house. They’re our birds, we don’t have to find them. But my husband spent hours making them and they’re lovely little things. I want them. I want more than anything to have a house in which I’m not dumping the contents of my baskets on the floor every other day - hunting for things I’ll never find again. My pursuit of simplicity in my home has been on hold since the days warmed and the ground became workable. My garden looks delightful, my pigs are fattening, my yard is becoming a homesteader’s paradise - complete with patio and garden fencing..but my house languishes in disorder. So here we go again with a plan - one that involves burning so many papers and filling big bags for Goodwill, one that involves stockpiling wood for the kitchen oven and making a list of spices to stock up on; spices, flours, grains, and other staples, one that involves - more than anything else, a readjustment of my attitude toward time - toward the day itself. Because I think, to make order work in life, I need to order my mind more than is natural to it. I need the discipline to commit spaces of time to certain activities: cleaning, cooking, meal preparation, writing, and most especially, to prayer.

I don’t think I’ll ever be someone to whom order comes naturally. It will always be a decision: to put away papers instead of just tucking them out of sight, to renew the dog’s license, to feed the sourdough sponge before it over-sours, to actually see the things I’m putting in the trash..But I’d like to make a beginning this week. My desk really should be that beginning - it’s overwhelming, but O-so-necessary! I will sit myself down Sunday afternoon and order my things in earnest, with prayers to St. Somebody-the-Orderly for help and resolution. Are there any well-ordered Saints..I like to think not, but I’m sure there are dozens of them, laughing at me from heaven. I hope they’ll hold their laughter long enough to lend and a hand.