"All of us experience some temporary physical sickness. All of us now and again may be spiritually ill as well. Too many of us, however, are chronically spiritually sick.
"We don’t need to stay that way. We can learn to avoid spiritual infections and maintain good spiritual health. Even though we have a serious physical ailment, we can be spiritually healthy.
"If you suffer from worry, from grief or shame, from jealousy, disappointment, or envy, I have something to tell you.
"Somewhere near your home there is a vacant corner lot. Although adjoining yards may be well tended, a vacant corner lot somehow is always full of weeds.
"There is a footpath across it, a bicycle trail, and ordinarily it is a collecting place for junk. First someone threw a few lawn clippings there. They would not hurt anything. Someone added a few sticks and limbs from a nearby yard. Then came a few papers and a plastic bag, and finally some tin cans and old bottles were included.
"And there it was—a junkyard...
"This corner lot is like, so very much like, the minds of many of us. We leave our minds vacant and empty and open to trespass by anyone. Whatever is dumped there we keep.
"We would not consciously permit anyone to dump junk into our minds, not old cans and bottles. But after lawn clippings and papers, the other things just don’t seem all that much worse.
"Our minds can become veritable junk heaps with dirty, cast-off ideas that accumulate there little by little.
"I’ve had to evict some thoughts a hundred times before they would stay out. I have never been successful until I have put something edifying in their place.
"I do not want my mind to be a dumping place for shabby ideas or thoughts, for disappointments, bitterness, envy, shame, hatred, worry, grief, or jealousy.
"If you are fretting over such things, it’s time to clean the yard. Get rid of all that junk! Get rid of it!
"And that is my counsel to you. If you have festering sores, a grudge, some bitterness, disappointment, or jealousy, get hold of yourself. You may not be able to control things out there with others, but you can control things here, inside of you.
"All of us carry excess baggage around from time to time, but the wisest ones among us don’t carry it for very long. They get rid of it.
"Some of it you have to get rid of without really solving the problem. Some things that ought to be put in order are not put in order because you can’t control them.
"Often, however, the things we carry are petty, even stupid. If you are still upset after all these years because Aunt Clara didn’t come to your wedding reception, why don’t you grow up? Forget it.
"If you brood constantly over some past mistake, settle it—look ahead...
"If you resent someone for something he has done—or failed to do—forget it.
"We call that forgiveness. It is powerful, spiritual medicine.
"It will then be as though a cloudy, dirty film has been erased from the world around you; and though the problem may remain, the sun will come out. The beam will have been lifted from your eyes. There will come a peace that surpasseth understanding."
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