The Random Thoughts of Henry Holloway
They say that ‘In the spring a young man’s fancies lightly turn to thoughts of love.’ Maybe some of the older ones have faint stirrings at the heart too! The women’s minds turn to thoughts of dusters and mops. Now that the weather has taken a milder turn we may expect to see a large scale operation in all our homes. The men folk will be finding a good many excuses for a night out to evade the flying dust.
No man of my acquaintance likes the annual spring cleaning. It turns his wife into a veritable suction sweeper. At tea-time it will be a case of, ‘Sorry dear, I haven’t much for tea but I just wanted to get those done out.’ You know how it is with a house. You just can’t let it alone. The dust accumulates almost without our knowing and the good housewife needs to keep a duster constantly on the go. Even with that the house needs its annual spring clean.
By the way, there was a wee fellow one day who said to his mother, ‘Mummy, didn’t God make man from dust?” Yes dear,’ she said, and by the way of further information she added that when a man died he turned to dust again. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘there is a man either coming or going under your bed.’
I have a kind of idea that a great many people have missed the real value of religion because they have kept their eye on the annual spring clean, so to speak, and have missed the daily dusting. Religion has been reserved for the crises of life; people turn to it in trouble or sorrow; they have kept if for special events like getting married and having babies baptized.
If religion is to be of any real value it must be something that touches every part of the everyday life. We all need to keep in daily touch with the power that cleanses and renews character. During the day our passage through the world leaves its mark upon us. Someone has irritated us and we come to the end of the day with a feeling of resentment. We have been disappointed about something and our spirits are restless. Something has not gone the way we wanted it to go and we are embittered. A hard experience has come into our life and left us depressed and lacking in faith. To go to our rest at night with the dust of the world still upon us it to make tomorrow’s tasks the harder and tomorrow’s burdens more difficult to bear. Never let a day pass without ridding your mind and heart of the dust of the way. Never carry over until the next day the deposits of envy and pride and prejudice and misunderstanding which today has stored up for you.
In the very nature of things you and I live in a noisy atmosphere. But somewhere, at some time of the day, we have to find a place of quiet when, ‘God comes down His own secret stair into our hearts.’ It was the Psalmist who said; ‘In the secret of His presence, there is rest.’ God give to you a quiet mind and a steady heart.
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