way out west: When do you bathe?

The theme for Tuesday's reflection/prayer and fasting is washing... so I decided to do mine in the Bath! Seriously! While I was lying there a question struck me... My Son has his bath at night, the purpose being to wash off all the grime and dirt he's picked up during the day... which with boys is a lot! Whereas I bathe every morning, tbh I don't feel right if I haven't had at least a shower (though I am def. a bath man!), I don't feel like I'm ready for the day ahead (the number of times the postman has knocked with a parcel just as I've got into the bath! <grrr>). I began to wonder when the change happened? Probably when I was around 16/17 I guess, perhaps when I stopped coming in from school/play caked in mud! There was def. a shift somewhere, a shift in the main purpose of the washing; from cleaning off the detritus of the day to preparing me for the day ahead.

I suppose the two purposes are important, we have to take time to get rid of the crap, to confess, to cleanse, to be cleansed... but as well we need to take time to prepare ourselves, to shake off the lethargy of the night and wake ourselves up for the day's business... Today I find myself focussing on the later, the bath as the beginning. I guess one can see both in the sacrament of baptism, the dying of the old and the awakening to the new... baptism is about dying to the old but it is also, more significantly in some ways, about a new life beginning, being prepared for the things to come. So Baptism isn't the end of the journey, but the start of a fresh stage of it. In the Jewish practice washing has 3 senses (the first two of which are intertwined) - 1) to be cleansed/purified 2) being prepared to approach God and 3) as an act of hospitality... it's interesting that Jesus seems to combine them in the washing of the Disciples feet... he welcomes them, he serves them but then he also prepares them to follow him, to do likewise. How could they imitate him if they where not prepared to be first washed themselves? I wonder if in Jesus question he asks two questions 1) the one we often think of - if they could not allow him to serve them how could they serve others? and 2) if they where not washed, cleansed and prepared how could they then walk with him/God? As The Message puts it...

If I don't wash you, you can't be part of what I am doing

So today I see a new beginning, today I bathe to be prepared to be part of what God is doing, We have literally washed the feet of people this year (out on the streets of Telford in the early hours of the morning at sank•tuary) and now it feels like we need to be washed, not just because of the crap we have picked up on the way but to be prepared to face the new day which lies ahead and that we might walk his way.

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