Carlos Fentanes

After I published a Conversations with Virgin Mary letter on Substack, nothing much happened — no likes, no new followers. Just as Virgin Mary predicted, I failed. And yet I felt different inside: I had dared to show up. I had the courage to put my work before the world. And then the messenger appeared — in small, ordinary forms: the elevator doors closing just as I arrived, a traffic light turning red the instant I reached the intersection. Perhaps those signs had been there all along; only now I am conscious of them. Only now I notice.

The following week I found myself again at Jorge’s house, ready for another talk, another cup — coffee, tea, or whatever he happened to have simmering that day. It’s always something different with him. He really is on that track of changing habits. This time he pulled out another letter from Virgin Mary, her voice, steeped in a compassion I associate with icons and altars, feels oddly personal.

Friday, June 12

Have you opened your fridge lately? Look closely. Somewhere in the back there is a container you forgot — noodles that turned gray, a piece of chicken that became a science project, lettuce liquefied into green soup. It does not matter how carefully you stocked the shelves; one forgotten thing can sour the air for everything else, as if it were quietly claiming the entire space, asserting its presence in ways you cannot ignore.

Think of your mind as a fridge for memories. Old memories, arguments, failures — sealed in their containers, long past nourishment, long past notice. They sit there, maybe silently, but they stink and seep into everything around them, curling around the new vegetables, the clean containers, as if nothing could escape their decay. You carry them with you, mistaking them for food, when in truth they are only weight, only shadows pressing and settling against the walls of your skull.

Do not be afraid to throw them out. The act is small, but the relief is sudden and strange. Space is not absence; it is invitation.

And just as the fridge holds its secrets, so too do the corners of your home. I have seen your sock drawer. You still have those ugly Christmas socks — what are you waiting for? Dump them, I know that order is not your strength. But order is a muscle, and muscles grow when pressed. I have another task for you: walk through your house as if it were the landscape of your own thoughts. Open the drawers you haven’t touched in months. Look under the sofa where dust gathers with coins and crumbs, as if the floor were quietly hoarding your neglect and murmuring its complaints. Pull open the closet where shirts you never wear still hang like old ghosts, waiting to whisper what you forgot. Each object has served its time; thank it, acknowledge its small history, and let it go. Clean shelf by shelf, corner by corner, until the rooms begin to breathe again. This is not housekeeping. This is exorcism.

If the house is wrong, everything is wrong. You trip over shoes, cannot find your keys, cook in a kitchen that seems to resist you. Disorder is not neutral; it bends the day out of shape, shifts the air, makes the walls lean closer than they should.

The same is true of the mind. If your mind is wrong, everything is wrong. You look at the world through glasses that no longer serve their purpose — scratched, cloudy, bent out of shape. You cannot make lemonade from rotten lemons; it is not about how hard you squeeze, it is about freshness, flavor, taste. Spoiled thoughts cannot be used for new goals, no matter how often you return to them, but how I can clean my mind? You can ask.

To clear a house is to clear a mind. And when both are set in order, you no longer stumble; you walk straight.

The exercises I am advising you to do work like a duster, like a broom, I told you before, washing your dishes can free your mind,

Now, it’s time for your questions. I know you lifted your hand. I know your question, and you know my answer — but you will feel better if you ask, so go ahead.

“You say order is freedom, but I fear order is just another prison.”

And I say: every prison is also a form of order. A museum is a cemetery of artworks. A library is crowded with books no one will ever read. A map is a labyrinth of space. Even language confines what it tries to release. Yet without these prisons there would be only noise, only void. Do not confuse the bars with the walls: order is not there to hold you in, but to keep the infinite from crushing you. You are free not because the prison is gone, but because you can walk its corridors without losing yourself.

I know you have doubts. You look at me and think my words are impossible, or worse, foolish. But in the bottom of your heart you know they are true, and you wanted to begin these tasks long before I appeared in your life in the form of this conversation. Do not be afraid. What I give you is only the map; you must trace the route. And I will walk beside you, even knowing the road will rise against us: In the broom closet you hold more objects than just brooms, release them; You have your own dead batteries drawer mixed up with “good” batteries, dump them all. Rome was not built in a day, nor is a soul. Begin again, and again, until order stands where confusion once reigned.

After reading this letter I thought, just as the spoon taught me to notice and failure pushed me to act, clearing my fridge is the next step in this strange pilgrimage. I turned to Jorge, almost as if I had just uncovered a magician’s trick:

“Empty your mind! Of course, that is not a new command. The Buddha urged it when he spoke of letting go of desire. Lao Tzu compared the usefulness of a vessel to the emptiness within it. Meister Eckhart insisted that the soul must be stripped bare so God could enter. Even John Lennon sang it with his eyes half-closed: Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream.

And then the idea was recycled into bestsellers and motivational speeches. Og Mandino urged us to begin each day with a blank page. Jordan Peterson, with his stern professor’s voice, warned us to clean our rooms before trying to repair the world. The packaging changes, the century changes, but the prescription is the same: make space, or the new has no place to enter.”

Jorge leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as if to cut through my words, shook his head and said:

“Don’t you realize yet? Listen carefully: the Virgin did not come to sell you another principle. She came to awaken what you already knew. This is not advice, this is remembrance. The fridge, the sock drawer, the broom closet — they were only doors to help you see. You do not need to borrow anyone else’s wisdom, old or new. You only need to clear the space inside so your own voice can echo again. And so we can stop here, for now. You have the task: throw away what is rotten, in your house and in your head. Begin again, and again, until order grows strong enough to carry you. That is the first step — because if the house is wrong, everything is wrong. And if the house is right, you may finally live in it. And once you live in it, you may finally notice the messengers at your door.”