Sunday, October 30, 2005

More Laundry

All of this talk got me to thinkin'. First I was thinking about laundry. Then I was thinking about how much I hated it. Then I was thinking if we didn't wear clothes then we wouldn't need to do laundry. Then I thought about The Fall. The fact that Adam and Ever were naked seems pretty important. It is all Moses talks about. Then I thought about all the things we have that could be considered clothes. There are a lot of things we use to cover up. We use sweaters, bathing suits, jewelry, knickers, but also, houses, curtains, security systems, cars, SUV's. All of this stuff provides us, supposedly, with security or status or both. If we go with little clothing, we've spent a lot of time, most of us anyway, at gyms, beauty parlors, spas, to make ourselves look presentable.

Then I thought about the time I went to Italy. I was on the beach and some women walked around without tops on. Most of the women who did this were not the young, pretty ones. But many of those same women wouldn't have been caught dead going from store to store in the little town in little shorts. I wonder if they felt this was liberating--walking around half naked. I've heard muslim women say the burqa is a form of freedom. They are not judged according to their looks. But really who are they kidding, they are probably judged according to their ankles, or the bridge of their nose, or their eyelashes perhaps.

Laundry, in some form or another is a constant in all societies. All cultures have their dirty share of it. So we all have this mundane task. Laundry.

This made me think of Sister Teresa Avila. She said, "the Lord walks among the pots and pans." Even though she became head of the convent, she still pulled kitchen duty. These mundane tasks, like the washing of the disciples feet, had a place in life. Considering Adam and Eve tended garden before the fall, this task probably existed before we labled anything as mundane.

1 comment:

praynlady said...

Great way to put laundry into perspective. I liked this one. God bless.