Christmas falls on a Thursday this year, which is great for me.
That’s because my work shut down on Thursday last week, giving me a full week to clean the house.
I’ve written before about my tradition of shame-cleaning, or Schamreinigung (German makes it sound more impressive).
It’s the cleaning that you only do when you expect visitors at your house. Because we don’t have many visitors during the year, we tend to let things slide a bit.
So once a year, I like to go crazy and clean the tops of cupboards, doors, and weird crevices.
Our visitors are always lovely people who are completely oblivious to whether we’ve done this or not. But I like knowing it’s been done, even just once a year.
I used to be a fanatical housecleaner. Every Saturday without fail, I would vanish in a blur of ammonia-based products.
I’d work until I was tired in the afternoon. Then I’d sit down and start enjoying the sabbath.
But over time this desire to clean has worn off. Oddly enough I found myself becoming happier as a result.
One of the nicer things about ageing – and I’ve notice this in other women too – is that you tend to care less and less about housework.
Of course, if you really let things go, then your children won’t want to visit any more.
In worst cases, it turns into a hoarder house, and that’s no joke for anyone.
But for those women who have been dogged for decades by a determination to clean everything in sight, there is something liberating about this.
It’s the same when women whose lifetime occupation has been maintaining their weight relax a bit and learn to live with a slightly bigger body.
There can be real joy in the gradual dimming of formerly eagle eyes and the fading of ruthless perfectionism.
I’m sure you have heard the expression, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
If you don’t understand what I mean, it just means that in the pursuit of what you think is perfection, you can lose sight of what is actually good right under your nose.
We should try to be perfect, because it’s what Jesus asks of us (Matt 5:48).
But we need be really clear about what “perfect” means. The perfection Jesus talks about is not having a whiter-than-white wash.
It’s not maintaining a size 10 all your life. It’s not having lids to match all your containers.
It’s not having the shiniest shoes in the parish or making sure your altar linen always comes back starched to exactly the degree you want.
Perfection in human form was born in the equivalent of a garage because every other bed in the house was full, at the end of a rushed journey that was imposed on an unwilling and oppressed people.
Perfection became a baby who soiled his nappies until he learned as a human being how to manage this.
Perfection ran away from his parents at age 12. Perfection learned to work with his hands to earn a living.
Perfection felt the full range of emotions: fear, anger, astonishment, frustration, compassion, grief, indignation, displeasure.
Perfection was so humble that he was indistinguishable from everyone else around him in how he ate, drank, worshipped, and partied.
Perfection was perfect simply because he was and is God. He lived in unbroken inner union with his divine Father and his Father’s will all his life.
This means that for us, the perfection Jesus asks for can be as simple as keeping your mouth shut when someone in the parish says something uncharitable to you.
It can be praying for your enemies. It can be forgiving grudges. It can be listening to someone when you don’t feel like it.
It can be letting go of your smugness and learning to be happy with much less than you thought, but probably much more than you deserved.
So this Christmas Eve, once you’ve cleaned the house, put your feet up, turn out the lights and light a single candle.
Join me in reciting Christe, Redemptor omnium, the great anthem of eternity that opens the Christmas season.
And maybe – just maybe – let go a little this year. Let something go wrong without having a fit. Let lots of things go wrong.
Let people simply take pleasure in each other’s company in your house.
Be perfect by thanking God for what you have, rather than punishing yourself for not living up to some ridiculous standard that’s got nothing to do with God at all.
Happy Christmas!