We cleaned the heck out of it.

You may remember these ladies,

lovingly known as my 'housies'.

Here's something I would like you to know about us:

We are relatively clean people.

Even relatively clean people, however, need to deep clean every once in a while, and that would be why this past weekend found us:

tearing. it. up.

The tall one 

 was deployed to the highest places;

the organized one,

to the places needing her most. 

Then there was the thorough one,

put onto the dirtiest.

When she had finished, we looked at that fireplace door so clean, 

and busted a little bit of gut, laughing at ourselves:

Who knew it wasn't supposed to look like that?....

And the answer is: WE didn't.

We've sat in front of that fire for years,
and never once thought it was a little dim.  

Of course I, being I,
jumped right inside the spiritual principle found there: 

How often in life do we sit around thinking that the dim light is all there is, until God wipes us down in all of His thoroughness?

In fact, once I started looking I couldn't stop finding: 

The nature of deep cleaning,

 where it gets worse before it gets better.

Where things are found that have long been forgotten,

like carcasses of dead old nasty things hiding out in unseen places, needing to be removed for good, sucked out through a rather uncomfortably aimed nozzle.

And then, after the walls were washed, the corners exhumed of any and all things resembling and/or made up of dirt, 

 the furniture moved back into place,

after we looked around and breathed in the clean,

and realized that that dirt has been eating away at our very souls without our even knowing it;

after all of that, I looked around and thought:
How often do I sit in my own filth, not even knowing it's there?

Kind of like, 

 who knew the top of the fridge was massively disgusting?

But--once I got a vantage point, I could see, and once I could see,

I could clean it spotless.

And do I even need to say it? 

I realized--once again--that the only One with a vantage point on me, is the only One who can truly make me clean.

And so, at the end of the (very long) day of cleaning the heck out of our house, I was reminded of what I never want to forget:  

I know a God who says--

You may not know you need it.

You may think you're relatively clean.

But here I am--ready to deep clean the heck out of you.

Ready to tear it up, in order that you may freely and freshly breathe.

Routine, you're nice.

Every year there comes a moment where I realize that the free-play of the summer is ready to transition into the routine of the fall, and by the time it rolls around, I'm ready for it too.

This fall has started slowly, gently, easily.

There's been time for leisurely and luxurious cooking.

There's been a return to my piano teaching schedule, with more time for more students, and a fresh start for those who have been marching through their piano goals with me for a while.

There's been settling into my office and my roles 

of teaching and assistant-directing.

And there's still some flexibility for work days at home, with baking bread, laundry, a little bit of piano tuning on the side.

And all of these things cause me to sit back and sigh, 

with peace, with content.  

Hello fall, your routine is welcome, your ease is nice.

I never said my normal was actually 'normal'...

The thing about a return to normal life is that when a good friend says 'hey, I have to go do this weird thing, wanna come with me?', I have the capacity to say: Sure!

That would be why I found myself here,

not that long ago.

Who knew that in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania there does actually exist a Himalayan Salt Cave?

Yes, deep inside this warehouse of a building, 

there is a cave,

 made of walls of salt,

 complete with lanterns.

You pay the good people of the cave 15 bucks, and they let you in.  You sit in eerie silence on reclining chairs, waiting with others in the room whom you don't know, and who may or may not make very odd sounds once the session commences.  For the next 45 minutes, you allow the salt to infiltrate your body whilst listening to terrible music.  And when all is said and done,

you step back out onto the floor of pink salt crystals in your blue paper booties, full of far more iodine and--supposedly--far less inflammation, ready to take on the world.

As for Katy and I,

we figured that if we were less full of toxins, 

we might as well fill ourselves back up before we got back home.

Hello normal life....who knew you'd be so interesting?