Unburying Souls

Discussion Questions 

1. Read the parable of the shepherd-king in Matthew 25:31-46; you can find it here. Then read the devotional below, “Unburying Souls.” 

2. When has someone stepped in to help you, without judgment or shame? 

3. What opportunities do you have to support someone who is feeling buried by life? Think especially about hands-on opportunities to be supportive, no matter how small. 

4. When has shame—the fear of judgment, or the weight of your own self-judgment—kept you from connecting with God in meaningful ways? 

Devotional 

[Jesus said,] “I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” – Matthew 25:36b (NRSV) 

Bea Elton, a young British woman, is covered head-to-toe in PPE (personal protective equipment). She’s literally shoveling poop out of the bathtub of a woman whose depression, anxiety and PTSD had gotten so bad, she wouldn’t let a plumber in to fix her toilet.  

House after house, Bea unburies people from years of accumulated trash, effluence, and vermin that have made a home in spaces now imprisoning their humans.  

She doesn’t do this job because she has to. She does it because she wants to. She herself was once depressed: sacked from her job, living in an apartment filled with mold. She documented her DIY mold removal on YouTube, hoping to get her security deposit back from an intransigent landlord and a grip on her own life. She was surprised to find the public interested.  

As her platform grew and began generating income, she started cleaning other people’s houses for free. She even paid for their hotel stays while she cleaned. What she found as she unburied layers of grime, grease, and grief was the life that had once been theirs. Signs of self-care and beauty, homemade art and teakettles and family furniture at the bottom-most layer of the archeological dig. Before Mum had died. Before the sexual assault. Before it all fell apart.  

When her clients move back into their now-functional homes, Bea also helps them find mental health support and other helps so their souls can be swept out, too. On the relatively infrequent occasions when people allow the detritus to build up again, she goes back and cleans again without judgment.  

She thinks you don’t have to have experienced this kind of burying to have empathy. “All of us are only one or two events away from that reality,” she says.  

Prayer
Jesus, when I am buried, take away my shame so I can ask for the help I need to begin again. And give me empathy to help unbury others you put in my path. Amen.

About the Author
Molly Baskette is a UCC minister, psychedelic facilitator and author of books about church renewal, parenting, post-traumatic joy and more. Learn more at mollybaskette.com.