A Soul Full of Trash.

A couple months ago, the garbage collectors forgot to pick up our trash. For three weeks. Waste Management bought out Advanced Disposal, and apparently they had some Covid related issues. I get it. 

But three week’s worth of garbage is a lot of trash. I have one of those big rolling garbage cans that the truck’s robotic arm can pick up. I had to keep on piling it higher. And higher. AND HIGHER! Do you understand how much trash 4 kids under 8 can produce in three weeks? Just the number of poopy diapers might get into the thousands. 

So it began to stink. I live in Georgia, remember. It was August. The cloud of flies that delighted in that trash made me worry that America was going through the ten plagues of Egypt. 

But then, one Monday morning, it was GONE. The good garbage men had recovered from their sickness and removed the plague of trash bags from my land. God bless them.  

Take out the trash, oh my soul.  

I had a lot of time to contemplate garbage during those three weeks. As I precariously stacked yet one more bulging trash bag in the can, it occurred to me how much this trash was like my sin.  

Sin is the trash in my soul. Foul and festering, it piles up in dark corners, stinking up my interior life.

Now getting rid of the trash is a multi-part process. First, I have to pay attention to the trash next to my sock drawer or under the kitchen table. I have to pick it up, put it in the wastebasket in the kitchen, take the trash bag out to the big rolling can, and then roll it to the side of the road on Monday morning.

This seems like a lot of work. Or maybe it’s really just a little bit of work done regularly. But it’s important. Yet, it isn’t the full story, because if the garbage man doesn’t come, the trash just sits there. Waiting.

Sent to take out the garbage.

So this process of taking our soul trash to the curb is repentance. That’s our part of bargain. But who drives the garbage truck and takes our trash to the dump?

After the resurrection, Jesus says something pretty mysterious. He breathes on 10 of the Apostles and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” This was the moment that Jesus told His Apostles that it would be their job to take out the trash. He passed on the authority to forgive sins through the power of the Holy Spirit that He demonstrated through His miracles.

He knew that human beings needed garbage collectors. It’s a big job. A dirty job. I’ve heard from many priest friends that taking out the trash is dirty work. Sins get really nasty, especially if they’ve been sitting by the curb for a long time. When I did my first general confession after 10 years away from the Church, I towed a New York City garbage scow.

But the ministry of collecting soul trash can be tremendously fruitful. The stories of the Saints are full of examples of how it changes lives. Two come to mind immediately: St. John Vianney and St. Padre Pio. Both of the had a tremendous love for this dirtiest of ministries. Each would roll up their sleeves and hear confessions for hours on end as people came from all over the world, bringing with them mountains of refuse. The stories say that these two saintly priests had a gift for noticing piles of garbage hidden in dark corners and pointing them out with a flashlight.

Seek ye first the garbage collector.

So if you’re feeling like your soul is a little bit stinky, like there might be a few more fly circling you than normal, head to the sacrament of confession. It might be that there’s some trash that needs to go the to dump. It takes humility and courage to confess your sins to a priest, but God has empowered them to do something that He wanted to do in person. He has appointed them His representatives to take out the trash.

What to hear more about about my soul being nearly devoured by demons? Check out my book, Demoniac, now available on Amazon.