I have friends who are spiritual, and they do things such as
build small altars in their house, pray, listen to solo piano music
and drink green tea. All of those things are fine by me.
I have friends who are spiritual, and they do things such as build small altars in their house, pray, listen to solo piano music and drink green tea. All of those things are fine by me.
My friends who practice small-scale spirituality are female. Women are terrific at understanding the soulful significance of a movie, concert, seashell or leaf. Men are good at understanding the meditative advantages of electric belt sanders.
Or why it is important to go to the dump.
I recently told a female friend that I felt spiritually cleansed because I’d been to the dump in the last week. She thought I was making fun of her and all other sensitive people. But I wasn’t. I told her that guys need to go to the dump and throw stuff out of the back of a truck because it creates inner peace.
The process of loading the truck with junk signifies a transition in life, the removal of elements of the past. Loading hubcaps, pieces of plastic furniture and that molded painting of a sinking boat that was a gift allows me to spend time in the past without dwelling too much. And it imparts the knowledge that soon I will move forward into a new phase.
“Someone gave you a painting of a sinking boat?” asked my friend.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “First it went to the closet, then to a box in the shed. I couldn’t get anyone to take it.”
I tried to explain that the dump can bring closure.
“It can also make your clothes smell funny,” she said.
Yes, it is true that the dump smells funny. But I reminded her it is also true that the dalai lama, and other holy types, have body odors of their own.
“I don’t think the dalai lama smells like a dump,” she said.
Perhaps not. But the deeper, larger truth is that the decaying nature of the dump allows men to practice spirituality without pretense. You better be wearing beat-up jeans, shoes and a baseball cap to the dump because you may get crud on you.
Wearing jeans with holes in them is acceptable – important, in fact – when going to the dump. And throwing junk items from the back of a truck while wearing a T-shirt with stains on it is a crucial aspect of the spiritual transformation. Flinging stuff out of a truck bed clears the head of mundane stress.
This spiritual transformation does have its temptations. I have seen guys come back from the dump with more stuff than they took. This doesn’t happen now, generally, because dump employees are skilled at weeding out useful items, and they keep an eye on things more than in the old days.
It is important to state that there are plenty of women who understand the dump run. A few weeks ago, my previously mentioned friend and I had a dump date. Her mother was moving from her longtime home into assisted living, and my friend asked if I would help move 40 years of receipts, decaying magazines and papers.
Being an enlightened man who lives on two acres with unidentifiable stuff on it, I said, “Sure, that’d be cool, but you’re buying me lunch.”
So, we shared an enjoyable time flinging bags of magazines into a huge recycling bin. Then we had a fine lunch.
“Don’t you feel better?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “But we smell funny.”
Maybe. Big deal. The dalai lama probably has other people who take his backyard stuff to the dump. Since I do my own spiritual work, I figure I’m a guru of some sort.
