Monday, April 2, 2012

The Road to . . . Dryer Sheets



I have done 6 loads of laundry in the last two days. 

I have been pondering for years the resurrective nature of laundry. No matter what you do, no matter how close to finished you think you are, unless you do your laundry completely naked (and if so, props to you), you’re never done.  Laundry is a lot like the Resurrection.  Yes, of Jesus.  Now for most people, laundry is not that life changing.  If anything, it’s the opposite. But I like to think of it as something far more eternal than soul-sucking drudgery.  Its very permanence makes it comforting.

And I don’t think laundry is resurrective in an original sin kind of way, as in no matter how hard you try, you’re still a sinner in God’s eyes kind of way.  My God doesn’t roll that way.  He loves me, and I like to think he’s got way more important things to worry about than whether I say fuck from time to time.  Or a lot.  Whatever.  I think it's resurrective in a very tangible and reassuring way.  That no matter what one year brings, whatever successes or failures, whatever attempts and resolutions, whatever messes I’ve made,  Jesus still dies to sin on Friday and is raised for me on Sunday.  No matter what.  Easter still comes.  I am still a child of God.  Just like there's always one more load of laundry.  It's always there for you, too.


Now, there are some folks out there who will say that this is a mighty fine missive from someone who lately has been to church almost not at all.  As in, we've become those people that everyone looks down on, the C&E's, the two-timers, the lesser faithfuls.  And maybe we have.  But my priest and pastor and friend always counsels me that we all have seasons in our lives.  And our duty to God is to live into each season as fully as we can.  You do what you can do.  After almost 10 years of nearly full-time devotion to church work, I had to take a step back a few years ago.  As in I got a full time job as a middle-school teacher, who parents alone during the week, who has kids whose sports last into the weekend, and who needed to find her God in a more solitary setting for a time.


And I pray faithfully.  It's just somewhere else other than a particular building.  But I do feel the call to return to my church.  I will go to church on Thursday night and kneel at the feet of my friends to wash their feet.  I will go Saturday night for the Great Vigil of Easter and to hear the ancient stories and celebrate the return of Jesus to the living.  And I will keep going back.  Because no matter what, it will be there.  Church will be there.  God will be there.  Waiting for me.  Just like the next load of laundry.


Happy Holy Week.

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