What’s Enabling This?

The sickening smell fills the garage and overflows into my lovely, cinnamon scented kitchen. I labor to ensure the perfect scent in my house. You know what I mean: the Yankee Candles (Coconut Vanilla and Autumn Wreath), the wax melts (caramel latte), and the mulling spices (clove and ginger). I love the smells of November. So when the smell of death enters this sanctuary of autumn, I know what’s happening because it happens every year.

Some creature has tried to nest in the insulation in the garage and has died. My husband is traveling, so I know I have to dig around in there, find the dead chipmunk (I think it’s a chipmunk), and remove the thing. I send one text of support out:

I’m going in.

I put on rubber gloves, examine the part of the wall that allows creatures to enter, and pull back the insulation. As I do this, the decaying carcass falls into view. I’ll spare you the nightmarish details and just tell you that it was gross. And it smelled. Badly. And it was sad. I was sad for a second and then disgusted.

I’m so disgusted I fling the dead thing so far out of my garage that I lose sight of it. And in a fit of disgust, I rip the entire wall–the one with the crack that lets the creatures in–off to reveal corroding and infested insulation that I then yank down in one large sheet of putrid hiding for creatures that die there.

And I realize this: I’ve just removed the structures that support what brings death. I’ve just disabled everything that draws the creatures in. I’ve just cleared out the space and let the fresh, clean, light air in. No more cozy nest. No more dark little refuge. Never again can the creature return because what draws it no longer exists!

All afternoon I think about corrosive sin in my soul. I ask what structures in my life aid and abet what opposes godly living. (Abet: I’ve never used it in writing before. It’s a verb meaning to entice and encourage towards wrongdoing.) I remember to think about the whole structure of my life and whether I’m set up well to honor God. I ask about physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. While I’m not sure my rampage and tantrum are the best methods to destroy parts of life that harm me and my relationship with God and others (think gentle recalibration instead of ripping down walls and insulation), I do think it’s worth asking the question, “How does the structure of my life–my schedule, activities, relationships, thinking, and even financial choices–encourage personal holiness?”

If something isn’t leading me towards Jesus, I take the dark thing’s hiding place apart. I let the light in.

Oh, the clean, fresh autumn sanctuary!