Recently, my family got the chance to help clean the church on two occasions. In both cases, I ended up vacuuming the chapel. I’ll admit it. I’ve come into the chapel before on Sunday as the first ward in the building and been a bit judgmental about the quality of the chapel vacuuming. Never again, though.
My Initial Discoveries
I’m not even sure why I chose to vacuum the chapel that first time. Maybe, I was just tired of vacuuming the classrooms, which is what I tend to end up doing. It requires a lot of plugging in and unplugging of the vacuum since you have to do that in every classroom. I was excited to not have to do that as often in the chapel. I also didn’t want to end up with one of those jobs where you finish first. Then you have to figure out how to keep yourself busy or decide if you should volunteer to help someone else.
After hauling the vacuum from the janitorial closet to the chapel, I quickly found an outlet. Wonderful! As I started to vacuum, I quickly realized that while the cord is long, you still have to do a lot of plugging in and unplugging to vacuum the whole chapel. Even the stand required me to vacuum one side, unplug it, and then vacuum the other side.
I also quickly discovered that there are a lot of small areas that are nearly impossible to get to with the vacuum. That area along the wall at the end of the pews requires a bit of a twist and a twirl and a hope that you get in there properly. The area under the piano and organ isn’t easy to vacuum. Some of the other areas are harder to get to than you might imagine if you’ve never vacuumed the chapel before. Plus, I spent a lot of time maneuvering the cord so it wouldn’t get stuck under a pew or otherwise get tangled.
Going Down the Pews
Before too long, I felt pretty good about my vacuuming. I felt like I had the hang of things. Then as I went down one pew, I glanced back at a pew that I’d already done. What? How had I missed those bits of crushed cereal under the bench? I went back to the row and vacuumed again. Then I continued to the next row. I quickly found that I missed something noticeable at least every two or three pews. I found myself backtracking and redoing areas a lot more than I’d anticipated. Maybe, I’d been looking for an easy cleaning job, and I was quickly realizing that vacuuming the chapel wasn’t as easy as I’d anticipated.
Oops, I’d Been Judgmental
After probably about fifteen or twenty minutes, I was a bit frustrated with myself and with the situation. As I continued to vacuum, I realized that I’d been judgmental towards some of the people who’d done the job before me. I’d felt like they hadn’t done the best job. I’d felt like they’d been a bit lazy when it came to cleaning the church or like someone had forgotten to do the chapel at all. As this thought process was going through my head, parts of several verses came to mind. These verses, from Matthew 7, include verse 3, which says, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” That was me, but I’m pretty sure the beam was a whole church pew in my case.
There’s Glitter Everywhere
Toward the end of my vacuuming experience, I came across two benches that were practically covered in glitter. I’m not sure what happened. They were about three pews apart, so I’m assuming that the people weren’t even there together. These two pews required using the hose extensively. I think they took at least three times as long as any other set of two benches. As I finished vacuuming, I felt like I’d put a lot of effort into vacuuming the chapel, especially those two pews.
The next morning, I walked into the chapel, walking past those two glittery pews. I cringed a bit. They didn’t look good. There was still some glitter on both benches. We were the second ward, so people had already seen my less-than-perfect vacuuming job. Perhaps, they’d judged me for it (even if they didn’t know that it was me they were judging). As I looked elsewhere in the chapel, there were crushed snacks, little scraps of paper, and other trash already on the floor. Some of it was likely caused by members of the first ward in the chapel, but some of it was evidence of my imperfect vacuuming job.
My Second Chapel Vacuuming Experience
Fast forward to probably two or three months after my first chapel vacuuming experience. I again chose to vacuum the chapel. Maybe, I wanted to prove that I could do a better job this time. Perhaps, I thought that I knew how to do it now, so I thought that it would be easy. Maybe, I just wanted to torture myself with my vacuuming imperfections.
I will admit that some things were a bit easier than the first time. I was able to plan out my vacuuming path a little better. That way, I didn’t have to unplug the vacuum as often. I got done a little faster (of course, there weren’t any glitter-covered pews this time). Yet, I still had to go back and vacuum areas over again. I still walked into the chapel the next day and saw areas where my vacuuming job wasn’t perfect.
Lessons Learned About Being Judgmental
Ultimately, vacuuming the chapel was a valuable experience. I learned a lot about being judgmental. It’s easy to think that you can do a better job than someone else when you don’t have to do that job. It’s easy to feel like we’d handle things differently from how someone else handles them. Yet, we are not in that person’s place. We have not faced the same circumstances as the person that we are judging. Until we are placed in the same situation (or at least a similar one), we really don’t know how we’ll react.
None of us are perfect. Those little crushed bits of cereal and the little scraps of paper that I’d missed on my first trip vacuuming were a reminder of that. Yet, they were also a reminder that it’s not too late to go back and fix things. Just because I wasn’t perfect before doesn’t mean that I can’t work toward it now. We continue to have the chance to look back on what we’ve done and see where we went wrong. We can go back and “vacuum up” our imperfections through the process of repentance.
Judging Ourselves
It’s also important to note that we are all going to make mistakes in life. At times, we may not even realize until much later that we’ve made a mistake. Some of these, like my imperfect vacuuming job, are going to be noticeable, especially to those who are looking to find something wrong. Yet, we need to just keep going. Keep trying. Keep doing our best.
Of course, it’s also important that we aren’t too judgmental or critical of ourselves. I realize that I sometimes need to give myself a bit of leeway as well. While people who walked by those glittery benches may have wondered about my vacuuming job the day before, I doubt too many people noticed or cared about my other vacuuming imperfections. The same applies to other mistakes I have made or that I may make in life.
I can’t say that I’ll be perfect from here on out. I’ll likely be far from it. Hopefully, though, I can concentrate on getting the church pew out of my own eye rather than being judgmental concerning other people’s imperfections.
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