Article November 3, 1980 Issue

Purifying our mental home

PETER ASTON

My wife's words stopped me short as I was going out the door. "Don't forget to take out the garbage!" Not exactly my favorite chore! But one that had to be done. As I picked up the plastic garbage bag and put it into the outside bin, I began to chuckle to myself.

"What spiritual lesson could possibly be learned from taking out the garbage?" I asked myself. Well, all of us, from time to time, collect garbage of another sort—we clutter up consciousness with the refuse of material thinking. Often we are not even aware that we are in the garbage storage business. Only when this mental rubbish encumbers our spiritual growth and messes up our lives do we see the necessity of getting rid of it.

What would happen if we didn't take the garbage out of our homes? Pretty soon they would become unbearable to live in. It is the same with our consciousness, our mental homes, when we don't take out and destroy the refuse of material thinking. Unless we are obedient to Mrs. Eddy's command in Science and Health, "Stand porter at the door of thought,"^{Science and Health, p. 392;} we unwittingly admit and harbor all sorts of rubbish—storing a piece of resentment here, a little bit of selfishness there, here a slice of self-pity, there some sorrow and grief. Pretty soon, with all that garbage around, things become rather uncomfortable.