foot washing
as a minister and a child of a dynamic presbyterian church, i have been a part of my fair share of foot washings. in fact, very few maundy thursdays or youth retreats have passed without the uneasy descent into vulnerability that occurs when one clumsily liberates the feet from their hiding places of leather, canvas, buckles, and laces, and offers them, in all of their clammy smelliness, to a fellow community member possessed of a rag and water bowl.
it’s too much raw humanity, yet we do it anyway. except for those times when, in the interest of time and the preservation of dignity, we wash hands instead. i have always chuckled at this modification of ritual and this attempt to clean up something that is intentionally messy. until i encountered these:
until i had boys, i did not know it was possible for the putrid smell of a post-game NFL locker room to be contained so neatly in a children’s size nine keen sandal. and i never dreamed that the still-sweet-smelling curly head of an 18-month-old could be part of the same body held upright by tar-bottomed peds. i wash two sets of powerfully smelly feet (almost) every night now. and i am here to tell you: it is not an exercise for the faint of heart.
the level of fith and sacremental beauty present during my kids’ bathtimes far outweighs anything i have ever experienced in all of my 33 years of church membership and six years of ordained ministry. some rituals happen in gothic stone churches, and others happen in standard issue tubs. but both are grand entrances into deep spiritual intimacy — chances to make and mark meaning as we put one foot in front of the other.
Tags: foot washing, hand washing, locker room, maundy thursday, ministry, smelly feet, vulnerability, youth retreats
July 10th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
It is interesting to contemplate the intimacy of this particular ritual, isn’t it? I wash my four-year-old son’s smelly feet, too, and barely think anything about it. And yet when my Disciple class did a foot-washing to conclude our study last year, it made me feel incredibly vulnerable and shy. And yet, those fellow class members knew me–they knew my heart–so it wasn’t like I hadn’t shared other types of (emotional) intimacy with them. It was very moving, actually, once I got over the uneasiness. But I was hesitant at the beginning.
It still doesn’t make washing my kid’s feet a pleasure, though. Cleaning up vomit, not so fun either.
July 13th, 2010 at 1:03 am
Eli now anticipates and mocks the faces and stink sounds I make whenever I remove his shoes. Seriously potent.
August 9th, 2010 at 9:40 am
Yeah, it’s not just boys. Zora’s shoes came off this weekend and my sister yelped, “WHEW!!!! Those are as bad as Dad’s!!!” And my Dad’s are about as stinky as they come in my family.