Their hearts are full of greed and envy and resentment and self-centredness but their houses are impeccably clean. This is one of the shirks( idolatries) of the modern era . I can hear the naysayers already”But isn’t cleanliness important?Don’t the Christians say:’Cleanliness is close to Godliness’. Don’t the Muslims do wudu and avoid ‘najas’(dirty things)?”Yes, this is all true. But there are priorities and perspective that is needed. Seriously!

When I came back from a long sabbatical in the Middle East, I was astounded by what I saw. “There are only three virtues left here-punctuality, material cleanliness and not pushing into line”, I would say. I could add hard work in some cases. But that is a pitiful list of virtues, especially if one is trying to improve our relationship with our Creator ! We need to work on inner cleaning, big time. Otherwise we are sunk.

Amongst the more common complaints I heard from patients in my psychiatric practice was:”My mother was much more concerned with the house being clean than she was with my emotional  state.I felt I didn’t really exist for her.” I heard that many times!