Thursday Sept. 2, 2021

My minister described her spiritual practices. 

            She starts her morning with yoga: “One of the most sustaining and grounding things I take in my day. 

            “Then I do the dishes. Something about putting one’s hands in hot soapy water is a reset for me -- a mindless task that produces something valuable. I dry the dishes and put them away, so I can begin again.”

            Her confession elicited mild snickers from the congregation. All of them had had, at one time or other, the experience of washing dishes in a sink. Most of them had automatic dishwasher snow, so that they could avoid the chore., 

            But why not let dishwashing be a significant time?

            After all, the Bible often uses the metaphor of washing. 

            Psalm 51, for example, says “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” 

            The prophet Isaiah said something similar: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings…” Another prophet, Ezekiel: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean…”

            They weren’t talking about washing dishes, of course. They were talking about washing their souls, their lives, their attitudes, free from sin. 

            One of the first paraphrases I wrote of the psalms put Psalm 51 this way: “Scrub me clean, Lord. Rub me down gently; Flush away my failures; Help me clean up my act.”

The joy of washing dishes

            Those ancient writers couldn’t have imagined having abundant hot water for washing. Exodus instructs the Hebrew slaves how to wash their hands in the desert. First, pour a small amount of water over your hands so it runs down toward your wrists. Then rinse off the first wash water, with the water running off your fingertips. 

            Clearly, there was no surplus of water to waste. 

            If we weren’t so used to the routine of washing dishes, we would probably find it a highly sensual experience. Almost a miracle. 

            Perhaps that’s why it loosened tongues in our family. Our dinners were often quiet. Not much conversation. Cutlery clinked on the plates. We could hear our jaws chewing. 

            But at the sink, after dinner, conversation flowed as freely as dish water. 

            There’s something about doing things together that builds a sense of community. 

Liturgical routines

            I thought of that, a few weeks back, when I attended a non-digital, in-person, worship service. People actually sang together, out loud! After 18 months of Zoom, it was an exhilarating experience. Almost ecstatic. Just to sing together. 

            The words and music were good, but immaterial. It was the doing together that mattered. 

            I used to question the value of rote responses from a prayer book or missal in some church’s liturgies. I see them differently now. It’s not the meaning of those words that matters. It’s the doing of them. Together. 

            When I mention this to others, they remember how the dinner conversation at family reunions was often formal, sterile. But when the family gathered in the kitchen -- to clean up after dinner, to do the washing, drying, and putting away – stories and laughter flowed freely. 

            If the Hebrew poets could see washing one’s skin as a metaphor for washing away sins, why shouldn’t washing dishes be just as valid a metaphor for spiritual development?

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Copyright © 2021 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.

            To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

I’m going to ignore, this time, the short messages of thanks for last week’s column on conversion therapy, in favour of a selection from longer letters. 

John Martin wrote, “I'm not sure conversion therapy is an election issue. [JT: It is in my riding.] The bill, C-6, died when the Governor General dissolved the current Parliament. I, for one, hope it will not be resuscitated in the next Parliament, at least without substantial modification. Who indeed could object to banning a ‘therapy’ such as you describe, if indeed such therapies still happen now that homosexuality is so much better accepted by society? 

            “But there's another side to the story. You wrongly focus only on therapies that aim to change sexuality. C-6 sought to ban both sexual orientation and gender identity conversion therapies and here's where it gets difficult. I have no issue with banning the first, if such a ban is even necessary. But I have a huge issue with banning the second. If you are a gender ideologue or trans rights activist (TRA) you believe that gender, one's innate sense of one's own sex and its congruence or otherwise with one's actual physiological sex, a feeling, is paramount. TRAs consider any denial of that sense to be conversion therapy. The only alternative then is so-called affirmation therapy. Affirmation means not questioning the patient's sense of gender identity and launching them on an irreversible, lifelong medical path that includes experimental wrong-sex hormones, amputation of healthy body parts, sexual dysfunction and reproductive sterility.”

Steve Roney: disagreed with a basic theme in my column: “I think you are wrong to suggest that nobody is ever convinced by argument. Our parliamentary system of government would not work if this were true. I can certainly think of many counter-examples in my own life. I know the argument that made me vegetarian, and who made it. I know the argument that convinced me of monotheism, and who made it. I know the argument that convinced me of free trade, and so forth. People on the political right enjoy exchanging stories of their ‘red-pill moments.’ The religious similarly exchange their conversion stories; and most often these are due to a particular sermon, or a talk with a Christian friend.

            “When Fanon speaks of cognitive dissonance, he is speaking of a more specific phenomenon: insanity. Someone who holds a belief regardless of evidence or argument is, properly speaking, insane. There are, as it happens, more insane people than we realize. We tend to see it only when their core beliefs are challenged. They may then become violent or abusive, or begin speaking obvious nonsense.

            “Insanity is becoming more common in our times, so we are seeing this sort of behavior more often.”

Laurna Tallman: “To my understanding, ‘conversion therapy’ refers to the effort made by some very insistent people to dissuade a person with homosexual feelings from that status. 

            “The main problem with that notion of ‘therapy’ is that most people have no idea what the origins of homosexuality are.  They are offering verbal bludgeoning, not a ‘neutral’ technique that will alter how a person thinks and feels more broadly.

            “The religious notion of ‘conversion’ is fundamental to Christianity and is a useful term in certain other contexts. It means ‘turning around’ from whatever your belief was to a different belief… Whether or not a person thinks or feels ‘coerced’ while making that decision is highly personal and subject to change upon further reflection. I think it’s still a legitimate term and undertaking of persuasion despite the extended meaning now in use regarding homosexuals.

            “We live in an age where personal ‘freedom’ is being defined more and more in terms of the most paranoid among us. We must be careful not to let those hyper-sensitive people define the standards for everyone else in how the language is used.”

Bob Rollwagen didn’t think conversions applied only to sexual orientations: “It is my opinion that conversion therapies are ideas held to be true by extremists, or those needing extreme solutions. When I first came out in 2001, senior family thought I was sick and could be cured. We have come further in the Western world in the last 20 years than in the previous 20 centuries.

            “If everyone had taken the vaccine for Covid, there would be no fourth wave. If everyone did a few simple things every day to reduce carbon emissions, climate warming would be slowed down to the benefit of all. It would take several phenomenal conversion experiences for society to realize” [the need for changes.]

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Psalm paraphrase

I suppose Psalm 125 is a plea for justice. 

2          As mountains gather around a little town, 
cradling it in the hollow of their valleys,
so God wraps loving arms around her children,
protecting them from abuse and exploitation.

3          Hands of hate shall not touch them;
no guns or war toys will fall into their cribs.
They will not be tempted by violence later in life;
they will have no desire to make victims of others. 

4          May it be so, Lord. 
May a good start lead to goodness as an adult.
Show us that there is an innate fairness in the universe.

5          Let those who turn away from you, 
who prefer their own ways to yours, 
suffer the consequences of their choices. 
Those who follow your way do not expect fame or fortune; 
But let there be fairness.

You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalmsavailable from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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PROMOTION STUFF

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. Some spam filters have blocked my posts because they’re suspicious of the web links.

            Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca He’s also relatively inexpensive!

            I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also has lots of beautiful photos. Especially of birds.

            Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD’S ARCHIVE

            I have acquired (don’t ask how) the complete archive of the late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures. I’ve put them on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. You’re welcome to browse. No charge. (Although maybe if I charged a fee, more people would find the archive worth visiting.)