Sunday Devotion- Yes you can can

Kelly Klepfer

We have a quaint little custom in Iowa. Actually it's neither quaint nor a custom, but for lack of better descriptors, I'm sticking to those. In Iowa, we pay a nickel for every can of soda we purchase. If we return the cans when we're done with them, we get the nickels back. This was designed to keep littering to a minimum and as a rule works pretty well. Some throw cans away. I can't. When I think of tossing them, I literally see money being flung willy-nilly. Hence, I am a can collector.

When my kids were elementary age, recycling education was at its heyday. So after enduring the guilt-inducing stares of my sad-eyed offspring as they watched me shove recyclable plastic milk cartons into the trash, and also listening to their accompanying lectures, I began recycling everything. Now even though one of those little recycling advocates is grown-up and tossing plastic in the trash, I feel I must continue what I started.

The trouble with recycling is during really neglectful, procrastinating times the process takes an entire extra room and becomes a gargantuan task requiring hours of my time, kicking, and screaming. But when it's all said and done, there's nothing like the sense of accomplishment to go with the renewed space.

In the tradition of Janet, the queen of finding spiritual and writing application in the daily and mundane, I've tied writing into recycling. I tend to keep and collect writing helps. I also tend to move them from point A to point C and back again without using them. Every once in awhile I open one and glean valuable space within my writing. My favorite help is my critique group. I know Janet has waxed eloquent about our group, so I'll just simply say that when I think my writing is lookin' good, I just forward it to my group and wait. Within minutes I'll get a scathing critique that usually leads to a tiny bit of kicking and screaming. But once I tackle the suggestions...wow!

The sense of accomplishment, the space. One step better is hitting a pay day. With the work, the sorting, the hauling and the putting into proper order of the cans, I get my money back. With writing, if I'll sort and put my words into proper order, I can get my money back and more.

Spiritually, what can I say? Other than when my soul gets full of stuff, even good stuff, and I'm not on top of it with God, I feel overwhelmed and bogged down and often can't find my way through even a familiar room. But once I take my trash to Him, everything is in order...not perfect, but the way it should be. My Saturday involved three hours of cleaning, sorting and cashing in of recyclables. I left the store with my pay-off of $11.15 and a sense of accomplishment.

How about you? You in need of cleaning out a room,some words or a soul?