The Prayer Thread is a collection of teachings and practical prompts to help as we learn to pray in community. This text was originally delivered on May 16, 2025 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
Chapter seven of the book of wisdom refers to Wisdom as a “spotless mirror,” a radiation of the Light of God. This text was likely written in Greek in the century before Jesus of Nazareth was born. Hundreds of years later, the Sufi poet and scholar Rumi, a Persian man, also referred to the image of a mirror: “if you are irritated by each rub, how will your mirror ever get polished?”
The tedious and ongoing work of polishing a mirror resonates with the work of spring cleaning. Over the summer, fall and winter months, dust and junk pile up and must be removed in order for the mirror to shine again. The work involved in prayer is like the work of polishing a mirror. It is ongoing, disciplined, and often needs to be repeated, over and over again.
However, the work of prayer, like polishing a mirror, is in service to a clearing away, an uncovering. When we clear away the clutter, the conduit flows more fully. When we polish our mirror, the beauty in the reflection shines more clearly.
The reference to the “spotless” mirror from the book of Wisdom offers on important nuance for this work. When we undertake spring cleaning, we are sorting out the junk that has accumulated, like dust, from the treasures that lie hidden beneath. Spring cleaning is not about trying to scrub out some inherent uncleanliness, or in psychological terms, some unworthiness, or in theological terms, some detrimental sin.
On the contrary, spring cleaning is a simple yet powerful clearing away of accumulated dust and debris. The work of prayer, the work of polishing the mirror, is to help see clearly again the radiant beauty reflected in the spotless mirror, to honor the inherent dignity of the one holding the polishing cloth. As we commit to the ongoing, cyclical work of spring cleaning, may the Hand of the Holy One guide us in seeing what is most in need of polishing.
