Spring Cleaning: Making Paths for Peace and Beauty

"I hope your day is filled with beauty to overflowing; wherever you go, whoever you are with, whatever you do, whatever you say. May each one of us, yield our hearts, throughout the moments of this lovely day, to the One who is Love; opening wide to to His ways, that he might live and move, and have His being, in us, and through us." ~Jewels

It's that time of year again - time for Spring Cleaning. Usually, we set aside a big chunk of time to take down and wash all the curtains, wipe down all the walls, clean the windows, pull the stove out and mop underneath, etc... But this year, I'm taking a different tack. I'm spreading the cleaning jobs out over several weeks - and spending some time focusing on our routines: taking a fresh look at what we do and how we do them; what works, what doesn't; where we need to change in order to accomplish what's important to us.

Just read this post over at A Study in Brown about how our routines and planning for order in our homes makes room for peace.

I was discovering that if we live in a state of continual reaction to our circumstances, we find ourselves submitted to chaos. All our life becomes urgency and disorder. We need to step out of that and craft an environment that highlights and embraces the beautiful and the lovely. This will allow us to respond thoughtfully and appropriately to the needs in our lives. (and in the lives of others.)

So, this year's Spring Cleaning is focusing on "crafting an environment that highlights and embraces the beautiful and lovely," looking at our routines to see how we can make sure we're

focusing on what really matters, and rearranging our schedules in order to have the time to "respond thoughtfully and appropriately to the needs of people in our lives."