Swedish death cleaning prayer.

For the last couple of years, since the publication of Margareta Magnusson's book on the theme, we have been hearing about the idea of performing Swedish death cleaning on our domiciles. The idea is not to clean everything within an inch of its life (remind me to tell you of the time I broke a toilet) but to get rid of everything unnecessary so as not to burden our descendants with our crap when we reach our Date with Destiny.

I must interject that I think it only became a thing because we love Swedish stuff -- skiing! pacifism to the brink of annihilation! socialism that supposedly works! cheap furniture! -- and if it were called German Death Cleaning, or North Korean Death Cleaning, or perhaps Cambodian Death Cleaning, it, uh, probably wouldn't have caught on.

"Gentle" and "Death" go so well together

Family Handyman has a concise series of tips about the means to perform this particular Swedish action. And I admit that the idea has its appeal. I would love to bring up a dumpster and just get rid of a mountain of things I don't need. On the other hand, it seems to play right into the anti-humanism of the modern intelligentsia, seeking for us to make ourselves as invisible as possible as we wait for the end, eating our kale and praying to Gaia.

But we cannot pray to Gaia for our eternal souls, as Gaia is just a planet and has no mind, no authority, no life beyond its temporal existence. Therefore we need to come up with our own Swedish death cleaning prayer, to say at eventide, as we prepare to sleep -- and prepare as well for the Big Sleep.

Here's what came to my mind, anyway, based on the 18th-century prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
All this crap I'll have to take
My cases stacked with books unread
Will still be here when I am dead
The junk that all my walls does haunt
Like some damn nineties restaurant
The vinyl, tapes, CDs, and more
That did my precious music store
A load of clothes, especially pants
That fit me once, but now, no chance
Each bill and paper safely filed
And old computers sit here piled
Hammers, drivers, nails, and wrench
Left scattered on my cellar bench
Attic, basement, full of junk
Attest I'm no Franciscan monk
Kitchen stuff once much regarded
Used one time and not discarded
The bathroom has things undesired
Bad aftershave and meds expired
Don't ask about the cars below
The garage is just a horror show
Every room has too much crap
Now I'm scared to have this nap
Since I can't take the stuff, I fear
Oh Lord, you'd better leave me here.