No One Has a Punch Bowl Toilet

Photo by Kim Carpenter via FlickrI've probably never eaten a meal in your home. Even if I know you, see you every week, we've probably never sat down at your dinner table and buttered bread together. And, most likely, we've never gathered around mine, either. I say we'll do it soon. I say it's because the calendar is so packed. I say it's because I'm so busy, and we really must find the time.

But, really, it's because I'm afraid of you.

I realized this when I first hosted an art class in my home. Beforehand, I chatted with the instructor, a friend of mine, about the details of the gathering that would bring several families I'd never met into my home. He asked me how I was feeling about it.

"I'll be really honest," I said. "I'm very nervous."

"What are you nervous about?" he asked.

What was I nervous about? Um, like, only everything. The dust. The cobwebs. The windows. And, good Lord, what if someone looked in my fridge, saw the rotten broccoli? Or under the stove, where the dusty Nerf darts live? Or found those Fig Newtons wedged between the couch cushions, under the library book I thought I'd returned last March?

And what if my guests have better furniture? What if they look at my stuff and think, "Oh, this poor, poor woman?" What if they see the moths flittering around in my pantry? Or the mounds of dirty socks and washcloths in my laundry room growing mold in the humid Ohio weather?

What if...what if...

What if they don't like me?

My friend assured me that it didn't matter. What mattered was that I was opening my home, cultivating gifts, connecting people.

"Just clean your toilet," he said. "Everyone's toilet gets gross. Forget about the rest of it."

"Everyone's toilet does not get gross," I countered. "I know a woman whose toilet is so clean, you could serve punch out of it."

"Everyone is not that woman," he said. "On most days, if you stopped into someone's house unannounced, it would be a mess."

I wanted to believe him.

The Amish in my community gather every other week to hold Sunday meeting in their homes. I think they have it a lot closer to the way the early church did it, not wasting money on heating and cooling and lighting a building to use it a few hours each week.

But they still obsess about cleaning before gathering. They scrub cupboards, paint porches and pressure-wash siding. A silverware drawer that's not scrubbed spic-and-span is declared "filthy."

Is this a natural part of our genetic makeup, to want everything just right? Or is it a disease? Is it a bi-product of being clean and healthy? Or is it toxic conditioning that comes from being exposed to picture-perfect magazines with gorgeous wood floors, fabulous and funky furnishings, but not a person living in them?

Or maybe it's from too much compartmentalized living. We run about searching for meaning, for worth, within boxes of life. We work in an office, take our babies to daycare, our children to school. We exercise in gyms, eat in restaurants, get clothing from department stores and seek entertainment in movie theaters. Our groceries come to stores from who-knows-where and cost thousands of dollars in fossil-fuels to put on the grocer's shelf. We are born in hospitals and die in nursing homes. And, on Sunday morning, if we're so inclined, we gather in buildings set aside just for worship.

So what is our house for? To hide? So no one can see who we really are, regardless of the face we put on when we venture out, regardless of what we post on Facebook or Twitter? Or to sleep? Will there come a day when homes are simply long hallways lined with beds and outlets where we recharge our bodies, our cell phones, our laptops before heading out again?

What purpose does a home serve?

What purpose does my home serve?

The art class happened, and I survived. As a matter of fact, I made some lifelong friends. I had more art classes after that, and writing classes, and houseconcerts. But every time, no matter what the event or who is coming, I panic, I break out in a sweat, I have second thoughts and consider canceling. And when I don't cancel, invariably, one of the guests will tell me there's no toilet paper, or that my dog puked in the hallway. More often, someone comes to me and says, "I could never do this. My house is never clean enough."

The fact is, mine isn't either. That's because I feel like my home is a reflection of me. I want my house to be perfect, because I want to be perfect. Sure, I want you to feel comfortable, to enjoy your stay, but, even more, I want you to like me. I want you to love me, admire me, envy me. And I want to avoid your judgment.

How do I know you judge me? Because I judge you. I do it to make myself feel better, to have some validation in my life. If I can find fault with you, then maybe I can forget about my own problems for a while, shift the spotlight elsewhere. It's comparison, and it's the thief of joy.

What's the solution?

Real life. Together.

That's right. I believe a regular inoculation of reality is in order. Come to my house when it's messy! Smell my litter box! See my dirty dishes! Step over sleeping dogs, scattered toys, crumbled Fig Newtons, lazy children! See me without my shoes, my makeup, my bra! See my children arguing! See my laundry molding! See how my books are not nearlty arranged on mahogany shelves in alphabetical order, first by genre and then by author!

Maybe after a few months of this real life, we'll get over ourselves. Criticisms, either silent or spoken, will turn into compassion and empathy. I'll do your dishes. You'll wash my laundry. We'll stand together in my unmown yard and watch goldfinches eat thistle seeds from the untamed meadow. We'll let the dandelions grow. We'll get past the pretense of performance and really learn to love one another without fear of judgment, either of ourselves or of each other.

And it might take a while. You might, at first, judge my cobwebs, my dirty sinks, my disgusting toilet. And, for a while, you might judge me.

But just remember-- I'm coming to your house next. So don't clean your toilet.