{"id":680,"date":"2023-11-13T19:36:54","date_gmt":"2023-11-13T19:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=680"},"modified":"2023-11-13T19:36:55","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T19:36:55","slug":"say-yes-to-the-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=680","title":{"rendered":"Say Yes to the Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reflection #74 (6th August 2023 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The theme of this week\u2019s service \u2013 the messy side of life \u2013 was inspired by something that happened to me last week (before I\u2019d even changed out of my pyjamas). I was idly staring out of the kitchen window on Saturday morning, while cooking my dad\u2019s porridge, and I noticed that the man who sweeps the street seemed to be lingering directly outside, just a couple of metres away. It was still quite early and it took me a moment to realise what was happening: the man from the council was roughly chopping off all the flowers that were billowing out through the garden fence and onto the street \u2013 Californian poppies, geraniums, salvia \u2013 all these soft frothy blooms from my little patch of cottage garden that weren\u2019t causing any obstruction or getting in anybody\u2019s way as far as I can tell. It\u2019s more or less the only splash of colour and life on our street \u2013 most of the gardens have been concreted over to make space for cars \u2013 and it\u2019s always alive with bees. I\u2019m quietly proud of it. But it\u2019s not exactly tidy. It\u2019s (intentionally) left a little bit wild. It made me feel quite sad that someone felt that this little bit of wildness was not welcome on our street \u2013 it was too scruffy \u2013 and these few stray blooms breaching the boundary line should be unceremoniously lopped off. And I\u2019ve heard many tales of verges being strimmed and hedges ripped up in the name of municipal \u2018tidiness\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

This experience got me thinking about the untidy and the messy \u2013 in all spheres of our lives \u2013 and our varying degrees of tolerance of untidiness and mess \u2013 perhaps even our acceptance of it. Tidiness wars have been going on for years, in my house, between me and my dad \u2013 who is Mr. Minimalism \u2013 and who would probably quite happily live in a bare and spartan home (with a neatly mowed lawn out the back and perhaps a just few old-fashioned rosebushes arranged in an orderly fashion). By contrast\u2026 it\u2019s not that I relish being untidy! I really like things to be orderly, I do! But by comparison to dad, I am Ms. Maximalism, and somehow I\u2019ve ended up with the role of being \u2018the messy one\u2019. Down the years I\u2019ve defended myself from this charge by claiming that I just \u2018have a lot of interests\u2019 \u2013 which all happen to have papers, books, equipment, and materials attached \u2013 and they take up a lot of my time and energy (which means I don\u2019t get round to bringing order to the chaos all that often). If you\u2019ve ever come along to any of my online services or Heart and Soul you get to see the one just-about-respectable view of my home, where all the recently acquired and as-yet-unshelved books are teetering in piles right behind my chair, so that they are just-about obscured from the camera. And while I might be able to get away with the claim that I\u2019m rewilding my garden for the sake of the bees I don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s going to buy it if I say I\u2019m rewilding my bedroom floor with a meadow of books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Untidiness in the material sense \u2013 having a cluttered room, or a disorganised house, or a garden that\u2019s turning to wilderness \u2013 this sort of untidiness is of course only one aspect of what we\u2019re talking about today. The bigger picture we\u2019re considering here is the very messiness of life itself. I wonder what that phrase brings to mind for you? Maybe social messiness \u2013 tangled relationships \u2013 complex situations arising from the interaction of fallible human beings, and flawed institutions, in an imperfect world. Or organisational messiness in your affairs \u2013 not being \u2018on top of things\u2019 or getting your \u2018ducks in a row\u2019 as the poem said. Perhaps a more general sense that nothing is quite as straightforward as you feel it ought to be. It seems to me that there is a lot of social pressure to \u2018have it together\u2019 (or at least to look like you do). And I imagine it would, in some ways, feel delightful to \u2018have it together\u2019\u2026 but that\u2019s a state of being that feels forever out of reach to me (and I suspect I\u2019m not alone in this regard). If anybody here today really thinks they\u2019ve cracked it and they\u2019ve got a tidy life perhaps you can tell us your secrets after the service! But there\u2019s something in me that strongly suspects it is neither possible nor desirable to avoid life\u2019s messiness altogether \u2013 there seems to be a connection between disorder and creativity \u2013 mess making space for emergence. So perhaps there is a middle way to be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I came across a blog post from author and therapist Lisa Olivera \u2013 she\u2019s recently written a book on the subject of self-acceptance \u2013 and in this piece she reflects on a line from the beloved poet Mary Oliver: \u2018Most things that are important, have you noticed, lack a certain neatness.\u2019 Lisa Olivera responds: \u2018\u2026 it is an obvious truth I\u2019ve been trying to accept my whole life, yet one I often fight against. I\u2019ve been taught to strive for neatness: for clarity, for knowing, for linear, for the 1-2-3 progression of everything, for the clean lines and clear Before and Afters and overcomings and I\u2019m-Past-That, for the plan and the schedule and the has-it-all-together\u2026 We think we, and life, are supposed to be neat and tidy, organized and ready for the photo-op. We think the sign of readiness is a lack of tangle, a lack of messiness. We assume we\u2019re the messed up ones if our behind-the-scenes secrets and processes and next steps don\u2019t look as clear-cut and set in stone as they seem to for \u201ceveryone else\u201d\u2026 Living is important; living isn\u2019t neat\u2026 being a person is a lot more complex and complicated than those trying to sell us constant ease and tidiness want us to believe. Perhaps it isn\u2019t ours to fix at all, but ours to welcome, embrace, accept, understand, lean into, learn from, allow.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words from Lisa Olivera. So, all that said, I wonder where you would place yourself, and your life, on the messiness continuum? More towards the orderly end of the spectrum\u2026 or the chaotic end? And how do you feel about the place where you situate yourself? Perhaps your life is pretty messy but it suits you that way! Or perhaps your life is pretty orderly and you long for a bit more creative disorder! Maybe there are aspects of life that you could take in hand and get more of a grip on. Maybe other areas of life are out of your control and working on a sense of acceptance could be your next step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often there is something we can do to make our lives at least a bit more orderly and manageable, if that\u2019s what we\u2019re aiming for, but constraints on our resources \u2013 time, money, energy, health, support \u2013 these constraints can make it very difficult for us to get out of whatever mess we find ourselves in. And, as an aside, let\u2019s remember that even Marie Kondo, the renowned decluttering guru, had to let her hard-line tidiness standards slip once her kids came along! The more we are trying to juggle in life \u2013 the more projects, the more responsibilities, the more personal challenges that life brings our way \u2013 the harder it will be to keep up any semblance of order. It\u2019s important to bear in mind the many complicating factors so many of us are contending with when we\u2019re trying to sort our lives out.
And, crucially, let\u2019s strive to be real with each other about what our lives are like, as far as we can. Because there\u2019s a great deal of comfort to be found in facing life\u2019s messy realities together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to close this reflection by sharing a kind-of blessing, a kind-of affirmation, it\u2019s taken from the piece by Lisa Olivera. Perhaps we can think of it as a prayer saying \u2018Yes to the Mess\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Mary Oliver said: \u201cMost things that are important, have you noticed, lack a certain neatness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I hold this as true, I care less about neat. I want to let it all be untidy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letting it all be untidy means dropping my ideas about how it should go
so I can more fully lean into how it\u2019s actually going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letting it all be untidy means surrendering to the pace that is most true,
rather than the pace I assume will take the least amount of time or effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letting it all be untidy means noticing where I\u2019m projecting an idealized version
of the present onto the real version of it, and choosing to turn back toward the real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letting it all be untidy means seeing the grief and longing as intricate pieces
of the whole instead of deterrents from fully living, from growing, from thriving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letting it all be untidy means trusting the unpaved path, the unclear outcome,
the longing to do the thing before having clarity around how it will go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letting it all be untidy means looking at the pile of dishes or the unswept floor
and seeing them as visions of tending to what matters more instead of proof of inadequacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letting it all be untidy means making room for setbacks and confusion,
for impatience and envy, for the things we\u2019re told to either hide or quickly clean up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letting it all be untidy means allowing what is true to be true, within myself
and within my relationships and within my work and within my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, what matters isn\u2019t tidy; sometimes, what is true isn\u2019t neat.
And perhaps that isn\u2019t a problem as much as it is a reflection of being
more alive than I would be if I spent all my energy tidying instead of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May you find what\u2019s important and let it lack a certain neatness.
May you find what matters right inside the tangle.
May you find the aliveness right inside the swirl.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And may it be so for the greater good of all. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An audio recording of this sermon is available:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nhttps:\/\/www.kensington-unitarians.org.uk\/pod2011\/KU_jane.blackall_hybrid_sermon_06.08.23.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n