Consistent Practice

Tuesday. I am so grateful for Tuesdays, to have time to walk around and pick up all the detritus of the weekend, to spend one hour on wiping, sweeping, washing, and have the house back in order. It is a marvel to me and I wonder how anyone does without it.

I remember in my single mom days, visiting my cousin Lynn who had a husband and a home daycare. She got up an hour before the kids came and got everything in order. She had shag carpeting (it was the 70’s) and she even combed her carpet. It made me kind of sick to my stomach to hear all this. Could my whole chaotic and messy life be vastly different with one quiet hour and consistent use of it to keep order? It seemed too simple, too doable, and I knew I wouldn’t do it.

I have only recently gotten the quiet of empty-house Tuesdays. Not long after this new routine came about, I started using the first hour to putter around the house, setting things straight.

I have three mornings of empty-house quiet and I do the same thing on all three days, but on the others also throw in the laundry and do other chores that fall less easily in the category of puttering.

If I only had an hour, I wouldn’t do it. But I have six. The other five are mine.

I’ve been thinking about consistent practice lately as I review the practices detailed in the Treatise on Unity (from A Course of Love). They’re not exactly things you can do in an hour. There’s the proverbial “get still and listen,” which could encourage you to your meditation hour, but the practice examples are more situational while at the same time they’re based on beliefs that are too broad to pin down easily.

I thought maybe I’d share these in coming posts.