By JALETTA ALBRIGHT DESMOND
A waterfall was cascading from the roof onto the patio, where workers had just completed repairs three days earlier. I swam through the heavy rain, searching for the source of the pouring water that was pounding the newly replaced tile.
The gutters were clogged. Hurrying to stop the deluge on our deck, I shook myself off, trudged upstairs, stepped outside to the small balcony, and stuck my hand in the grunge-filled gutters again and again, finally emptying them enough so water could flow through, into the downspouts, and out to the ground where it was designed to go.
Something as simple as a little grunge — some sticks, dirt, leaves, and general muck — was causing water to flow onto the tile floor, the patio furniture, and into corners where it could eventually cause damage, if left unattended.
Aside from releasing torrents of water and gooey runoff onto our patios, front stoops, or landscaping, clogged gutters can do a lot of damage. Debris mixed with water can form a sludge that may weigh down the gutters, causing breakage, or eat away at the metal coating. They are also fire hazards because embers can travel more than a mile away from wildfires and at least down the block and around the corner from a house fire, igniting leaves and debris clumped like kindle. Also, clogged gutters are nice nests for vermin, such as mosquitoes attracted to the standing water.
We might put our homes at risk for these major hazards because of a few sticks, leaves, and dirt — and our laziness.
As I picked up handfuls of icky grunge it reminded me of how we are sometimes guilty in our lives of letting debris block our growth, our maturity, and our opportunities. We may be allowing the grunge in our lives to plug up the creativity, ambition, motivation or discipline we need to let flow.
We might have a God-given talent or a spiritual gift or even a spiritual directive that we know we need to develop or pursue. But we choose instead to get stuck in the muck and mire. We let fear, insecurity, laziness, busyness or our weaknesses clog the flow of our ideas, the surge of our ambition or the power of our convictions. Instead, we allow simple things in life to distract us and redirect us, as the water was redirected and dousing the patio. We let past hurts hold us back from reaching out to others, we let past failures paralyze us with fear, and we let current demands on our time and energy draw us away from the growth and challenges God may be calling us to pursue.
We are probably trying to ignore the flotsam and jetsam that washed down onto our lives and clogged our gutters. It’s just easier. We ignore the warnings and ignore the hazards, until we’re drowning in the deluge of some personal disaster or emotional upheaval.
If things are flowing the way they are intended to through the gutters, a pounding rain storm won’t cause damage. If we are disciplined about dealing with personal or spiritual issues and striving to do the work required, we can weather the storms in our lives, as well.
If we dig in deep and pull out the grunge surrounding our heart, soul, and mind, we can address the damage the obstruction has done, remove the hazard, and open up the flow of our spirit and God’s spirit. But we must dig in there and get dirty, dig in there and not be afraid of what we’ll touch, dig in there … and dig it out.
This may require something even more disturbing, something we are less equipped to handle in this day and age: stillness.
We may need to sit still and think about what is damming up flow in our lives. We would need to get alone, with our thoughts or a journal, ask ourselves the tough questions or “excavation questions,” as they are called in a book I’m reading, and be still. In the stillness we can actually think and, possibly, find solutions that will open up our clogged emotions or thoughts.
Stillness can lead to movement when we’ve removed the obstacles in our lives. The creative, productive and effective waters can flow.
Last week we had several days of drenching rain, the result of some storm of the coast of somewhere. What a difference clean gutters made. Buckets of rain flowed off the roof, into the gutters, and into the yard where it was supposed to go. Funny how well things flow when they are moving the way they were designed to move.
Makes me wonder what I could accomplish if I cleared and opened blocked areas in my life so I could function as God designed.
Jaletta Albright Desmond is a self-syndicated columnist who writes about faith, family, and the fascinatingly mundane aspects of daily life. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and two daughters. Contact her at jdesmond@bdtonline.com.
