itellyouarise

If cleanliness is next to godliness then I am a sinner indeed.

There is is difference between cleaning out of a sense of duty and as an act of love.  When its an act of love it’s a lot less unpleasant for one thing, you approach it differently because it’s an opportunity not a chore.  How can I show you that I love you well today?  How often do people ask themselves that question?

I was thinking today that if my body is not sacred or profane then I make it an object… a gun is not sacred or profane in and of itself but how it is used.  If you asked me to think of a sacred object I think I would struggle.  It seems a word belonging to past times when a church or an icon of some kind might be called sacred.  What is “sacred”?  Something employed only for the glory of God?  What is “only”?  What is the glory of God?  Credo was sacred – not clean, tidy or holy necessarily but sacred.  Are the churches that hire out as function spaces more profane?  As long as >50% is for the glory are we doing ok? Cleaning the bathrooms can be a sacred act if it is done as an act of service and expression of love.  Nothing I eat or drink can profane my body… there is a new law.  What else can I do, or not do, that might make my body more sacred? Or profane?  I pray but I don’t think that makes me sacred.  I might light a candle – the candle itself is not sacred but my intent in lighting it… if I follow that logic then You are sacred, and also those spaces we might encounter You.  I do not encounter You often in church these days and that make my heart glad because it makes the trees, the birds, the sky, the water, the blank A4 page sacred if that is the intent I bring to it.

Water on the counter and the floor, then we walk across the floor, so over the day a trail of muddy footsteps back and forth develops. Have you made my bathroom dirty? Am I unclean amidst your preparations for prayer?

What is sacred? What is profane?

Is there not love in the hands that change the nappy and soothe tears?  In the hands that shower a disabled father and wash the incontinent sheets? Is there not love in the hands wielding cleaning cloths and assembling shelves?  So humbling such a love as this and I expect good work if it can be seen for what it is.

Where my thoughts are on God, I encounter God.