Before I read Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten in 1986, I never knew where all the dust came from. One of my chores growing up in a third floor flat in Roxbury was to sweep up all the dust on the long hallway that was the route to all of the rooms. From the front door to the kitchen, the hallway was often dusty. My mother had me sweep with a broom and dustpan.
Fulghum said that all the stuff on the floor besides all of the miscellaneous things comes from just “two sources: people—exfoliated skin and hair; and meteorites—disintegrated as they hit the earth’s atmosphere.” In other words, the stuff we sweep up is mostly people and stardust. Fulghum concludes, “It isn’t dirt. It’s cosmic compost.” (pp.122-124)
On January 22 this year is the Lunar New Year of the Rabbit. In the Chinese tradition, all of the cleaning for the celebration occurs before the New Year Day to symbolize a fresh start and cleaning out any old misfortunes. What is very important is to not clean on New Year Day to avoid sweeping away good luck in the New Year.
When I was pastoring First Chinese Baptist in San Francisco, the very first thing I would do on Sunday morning was to get out the broom and dustpan to sweep the sidewalk before our church people arrived. In our touristy city, countless people would have enjoyed our neighborhood, evidence of what was left behind. The stuff can be reminders of why our church in Chinatown exists in the first place.
I read that Buddhist monks has a practice called, soji. They sweep around their monastery for twenty minutes after their morning prayers and meditation. They did this with no intentions to ever finish. It’s like cosmic dust is always falling around us. It’s like tourists in Chinatown would always leave something behind.
When Jesus visited Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42), Martha complained to Jesus that she was burdened with many tasks. I can imagine that Martha probably had a broom in her hands to sweep out the dust and sand that was present in their village and probably brought in by Jesus’ own sandals. Mary may have focused on Jesus but I hope that in Martha’s daily chores that she would find that the practice of sweeping would lead her to focus on Jesus too.
I sweep the front area of our house as often as I can. Sometimes, I am picking up a leaf at a time. For me, it’s a metaphor to maintain a place for living a clean and orderly life, a symbol of hospitality, an acknowledgement of cosmic compost. In my daily sweeping, my mind is clear, my heart is open, and a New Year is beginning.
Happy Lunar New Year!