foot washing

It's a well-known image in the Christian church of Jesus kneeling down to wash his disciples' feet.  And in the pictures of the children's books, it always looks so nice and clean.  Sanitary.  And when I have been in Christian settings where people practice this kind of thing, it was just that: spotless, clean, nice smelling, sanitary.

Nobody comes to the foot washing ceremonies dirty.  At least, not the one time I experienced it.  If anything, I would be willing to wager quite a few feet were actually cleaner than you would find them on a day to day basis...

Which is perhaps why the act seemed purely symbolic...a ritual...not quite as powerful as people made it sound like it would be.

But one thing about being in Guatemala is that my feet get dirty.  Because of this, there have been a couple of times this week where I have come home from work and decided to wash them.  Sometimes because I wore sandels and my feet were dusty.  Sometimes just because I had been walking and my feet in my shoes were hot and itchy.

What I noticed is that foot washing is much more than a ritual experience.  To seriously scrub my feet after a long day is amazingly refreshing.  It eases the itching bites around my ankles and helps me transition to the evening feeling fresh and new.  This really surprised me...I wasn't expecting such a small thing to have such an impact.

But it did...

And how much more satisfying a cleaning is when there is actually something to clean.  It makes me wonder if some of my satisfaction with God (or lack of it) is due to not really bringing anything to be changed.  If I ask him to repair something in me without presenting anything broken, I shouldn't be surprised when the results are like washing something again that I washed myself already.

It becomes nothing more than ritual.

But presenting the nitty gritty dirty stuff, now that's when I feel the full satisfaction of being clean.  That is when the difference is more discernible.  And that's when I walk away refreshed, marveling at the wonder of finally being free of the dirt and the filth...

Maybe that's why the dark times, in the end, lead to me feeling lighter...maybe it's a matter of sifting through the dirt and dust.  Maybe without those hard times, I would merely wash my feet myself before handing them over to be washed again.  I would merely go through the ritual without ever understanding its underlying purpose--without ever knowing the contrast between dirty and clean.