Small Devotions: Taking Out the Trash
This might seem like an unusual subject for devotion, but it is part of daily life!
The city I live in uses a three-bin system: recycling, compost, and landfill. Each bin has a list of exactly and only those items which should go into it—even the landfill bin has items which are not acceptable. This doesn’t require a lot of brainpower to process; the waste hauler provides an infographic to post over each bin, so all you have to do is check the poster and sort items accordingly.
As I place the items into the compost bin, I recite the following (the phrase in brackets is included if I’m adding flowers from my altars or the common areas):
Thank you for nourishing and nurturing us.
[Thank you for beautifying our home / my altars.]
May you go on to become something beautiful, delicious, and/or useful.
So may it be.
For the recyclables, the words are similar:
Thank you for bringing us useful and wonderful things.
You have fulfilled your purpose well.
May you go on to become something beautiful, helpful, and/or useful.
So may it be.
It was challenging to come up with something for the landfill items, because they don’t go on to a new purpose. I finally settled on a shortened version of the recycling:
Thank you for bringing us useful and wonderful things.
You have fulfilled your purpose well.
It can be difficult some days to feel anything but annoyed at having to deal with taking out the trash—especially the morning when you’re in a hurry and it’s One More Damn Thing to deal with (although 6:00 PM You will appreciate that 9:00 AM You took the time to do so), but I hope that this post gives you a way to approach the task with a different awareness so it becomes less of a chore.
