For Youth Ministry in East Tennessee

It's spring. Though, by the 80-degree weather, one might think that we have fast-forwarded past spring and jumped straight into summer. Nonetheless, the flowers have bloomed and the trees have grown new leaves. The colors are plush, the landscape rich with life once again. I like spring, though there's one aspect of this season with which I have a love-hate relationship: spring cleaning."

Some folks love it, some hate it. I'm in the middle. It's nice when it's done, but doing it is not a pleasant experience for me. As I write this, I look around at the clutter in my office, and think about how else I can put off the inevitable. But spring cleaning is not a new concept.

This past Wednesday, as I do almost every Wednesday during the school year, I was leading Middle School Chapel at the Episcopal School of Knoxville. The reading from the Daily Office was one of my favorites, from the Gospel of John: "I am the vine, you are the branches."

Much to the enjoyment of the science teacher, we've been talking quite a bit over the last few Wednesday chapel services about plant life through the Gospel, starting with the sower and the seeds (Mark 4:1-8) and continuing with the seed as resurrection (1 Cor 15:36-37). This week, we talked about spring cleaning.

It's funny how the Daily Office coincides so often with what we do in our daily lives. Or, perhaps, not so much funny as by design. As we begin our spring cleaning, we begin to remove the branches that bear no fruit, and to prune the ones that do.

If you're a graderner, you know this already. If not: in the life of a plant, a branch that bears no fruit is a drain on the resources of the rest of the plant. Removing it strengthens the plant and allows those resources to flow to the branches that are productive. For branches that do bear fruit, pruning keeps them strong and productive.

And so it is with our spring cleaning, not just with our physical spaces, but with our lives. This process began with Lent, but continues in full force with Easter as we remove the things in our lives that needlessly consume resources (be those resources material or spiritual), and we prune back the ones that we find productive that they may continue to be so.