Thelogy of Space -- the Problem of the Living Room

I've turned my not insignificant analytical skills over to the "Problem of the Living Room." This is the room I most associate with my "public life"-- that and the front porch. This is really very Jungian -- Jung described seeing his life as a house, and in 1909 had his dream about the sub-celler that he called the collective unconscious. I dream often about houses; my life IS my house; my house IS my life; an inner expression of an outward state and thus the way I keep my "house" is sacramental. I don't know of anyone really doing serious work on this in Western thought. I know that many Eastern religions see and express this relationship between inner spaces and outer spaces, but not traditional Western Theology. This is an area that indeed fascinates me. I think about it often.

So by addressing the inner clutter and placing spiritual disciplines into my inner life is not the end all, be all. My outer space needs to reflect that discipline. Thus my musings on the "Problem of the Living Room." My bedroom is usually the neatest and most uncluttered room. In fact, most of the time my bedroom (the place that represents my most inner self) is quite nice; serene.

But the Living Room. Yikes. There are several "systems problems" going on. We tend to fold the laundry in the living room and never put it away. There are magazines and books heaped on the coffee table. The cat's quilt is always in a heap on the sofa. And recently I've added to the mess -- I've got about 12 boxes of books that have been listed on Amazon stacked up near the fireplace and 2 boxes of eBay stuff. The kitchen catches the spill over and it's quite messy too.

And I wonder -- isn't this just reflective of my "public life." There's too many activities to do in a day. Chaos alone has almost 8 separate extra curricular activities and the number is growing rather than shrinking.

(An aside; Chaos has been selected to participate in the big Middle School event that the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has every year -- Metro Atlanta has 15 counties, a couple of million kids, and only 200 selected to participate in this clinic. It's a great honor. But it's another thing to add to the schedule .... This kid has at least 6 concerts this year. Yikes!)

I need to enforce the same discipline in my public life that I have in my inner life. I started yesterday by hiding Chaos' laptop and Entropy's Wi-Remotes. Funny, with those things gone, more chores got done. The mess in the Living Room is much reduced.... Hmmm..... Time for me to get off the sofa/computer and do a little more picking up. Oh, and post everything on the family calendar on the back door so we don't have as many conflicts...

To do:

• Clean out the garage so that I have room for Amazon books and eBay auction stuff.
• To do that I need to give away the Goodwill stuff.
• To do that I need to find the iPod that Entropy has lost (to make sure it's not in the giveaway bags.)
• To do that I need to clear out dirty laundry.
• So laundry will be first.