Just sweep it under the carpet.

As part of a recent home remodel I was tasked with the removal of the old carpeting and the refinishing of the original flooring beneath. As it turns out the original flooring was oak as so many of the older houses are. The owners through the years had responded to the advertising campaigns promising the beautiful look and feel of carpet. So easy to clean, so wonderful to behold!

As I pulled up the carpet and then the pad I was aghast at what was left there on the floor! Years of accumulated fine sand and grit and disintegrating carpet pad lay hidden there, out of the reach of any effort to remove it; hiding the beauty of the authentic wood, grinding away at its surface with each step.

I was struck with the thought of how our spirituality is much like what I saw before me. We respond to the sirens of marketing and cultivate a life foreign to our authentic selves. We cover up our authentic nature with what society tells us is a more desirable image while our issues that we deal with daily, like the dirt we drag onto our carpet, work their way down through that covering and stay trapped beneath. Never really being dealt with, never able to access them to truly put ourselves beyond their control. Instead of choosing to deal with our issues when they need to be dealt with, they stay where they are. Lying hidden under a inauthentic covering that others see as grand and better than the original beauty that we all have within us "beneath the carpet".

Three days later there before me was an oak floor shining and radiant in its natural color and beauty. We had cleared away all the old accumulated dirt and had worked hard to reveal what had been there all the time. Authentic beauty.