Make Room for Mud

Make room for mud or make a mud room? 

In rural northern locations, mudrooms make a house a home. During the eight years I ran a residential cleaning company I toured more houses than I could count. Each one challenged me to create a plan for efficient cleaning. I noticed a pattern: houses with an organized, thoughtfully designed, mudroom were easier to clean: catch the dirt at the entry and the whole house is happier. 🏠 

We’re re-building ours right now because it was falling off our old farmhouse. It’s gone now. I have lived with and grumbled about an alternate mudroom for decades. I’m excited for the upgrade - when we get there. 

The passing of what some call ‘a big beautiful bill’ prompted me to tour the doge.gov website. 🙄 There, I saw headlines proudly claiming that 1.8 million words had already been deleted from regulations and internal guidance documents. 

Deleting internal guidance documents feels like a whole lot of monkey business to me - and reminds me of a conversation I had with an ex-Mormon a decade ago. As a child, black people were not allowed in his church - as per dictates etched into the golden plates, he was told. 🥺 But as a young adult, the script changed and he was instructed to recruit people with dark skin. 

Perhaps DOGE took a lesson from Joseph Smith: deleting barriers of entry distorts reality and might grow the congregation. Neither realized how weak that argument is. Cognitive dissonance created a crack ⚡️in the cultic wall around this once devoted Mormon. He left the church soon after. Could the Epstein debacle be creating similar cracks for MAGA devotees? 

I welcome compassionate conversations that hopefully follow every person’s awakening to their indoctrination - no matter what kind. All groups, all people, have dirt. What would the mudroom for a religion look like? 🧐

Perhaps an antidote to all things culty is as simple as a good mudroom - a place for dirt to drop and be seen at the point of entry and exit. Let people stomp their feet, ask questions, open windows, and take a seat to change out of muddy shoes. Pause again before leaving. 

Transition is the psychological process people go through to come to terms with a new situation. 

Author and organizational scholar William Bridges

Writing to Reckon gives space for mud and transitions. 

Perhaps by this time 1.8 million words have already been shared and heard. Each written piece elevates the author’s autonomy, integrity, and resilience against coercive control - mud and all. Words have power. Don’t delete them.

Instead, let's write to reckon. 

Gerette

PS Save $10, pre-register here, and learn who will be speaking at the September Writing Symposium!