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CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 5086 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Online
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Posted: Tue Jan 23rd, 2007 08:32 pm |
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The following Penguin Parable is copyright 2007 by Marti Wilson.
It was originally posted on Catholic Pillar and Foundation, and is reposted with permission.
Laundry Day!
Anybody who comes from a large family knows what a chore it is to do the laundry. My husband is fond of saying: "Please, don't say the laundry is done. Unless everybody stripped naked there is more laundry and it will pile up if those machines are not constantly running." Of course the worst thing to get stuck with is folding the white clothes. Faced with 70 socks and who do they belong to, I find the kids often recycle them to the dirty clothes just so somebody else gets stuck sorting socks. By the time Dad gets involved there can be well into 200 socks needing to be matched and put away. The dryer just cannot eat that many socks!
The laundry showed me the difference between the Protestant and Catholic life of contrition. The Protestant will say "I take it straight to God." That is great. However, it is like spilling Kool-Aid on your shirt -- you realize you did it and send the shirt to the laundry. Every Catholic does the same. Having sinned and realizing you just did, you immediately ask God's forgiveness. Most Christians who maintain an active prayer life, will talk over their day with God in the evening before they retire. Catholic and Protestant alike we apologize to God for the wrongs we have done -- however, this is usually rehashing what we have already noticed, though often with a bit of expansion. Yep, that kool-aid splashed on my pants too. Send them to the laundry.
This is that ongoing laundry cycle. The shirt, the pants, --the things too large to avoid being noticed. Yet these are not the articles that typically contain the most filth. It is the stuff worn close to the body like a second skin between our skin and our outer garments -- Underwear and socks. A woman in love with a man may bury her face in his sweater to breathe in the pleasant smell of him -- she will not do that with his socks -- I guarantee it! Left unlaundered these items, well, stink. Nope, that red kool-aid did not touch them -- so it is not obvious -- but they are full of the little occurrances of the day. When do we look at that?
For the Catholic, we mentally strip down and do a full inspect --called an examination of conscience -- before going to confession. Not just the big things but the accumulated smell and dirt caused by the plethora of little things that in our daily life we did or failed to do. Those dirty socks that will just keep accumulating. Never perhaps showing the dirt but oh so obvious by the smell. Devoid of a laundry day, the big noticeable things get taken to the laundry room, but the little things just pile, until one is so overwhelmed that it becomes difficult to get out from under it all.
The emotional highs and lows of Protestant life seem to me directly connected to the laundry issue. Those socks pile until they become like the Great Wall of China between man and God. God is willing to forgive -- to wash them clean but nobody really knows what is dirty and what is clean anymore. Often, rather than doing the laundry they move to a new house. "Well, I wasn't getting what I needed from the old church and the new church's pastor is such an invigorating speaker!" They draw a spiritual line and forget about the line of stinky items they have left in their wake. They change churches never realizing that it is not the church that stinks but themselves. Or they draw that line by taking on a different role in the church. "Well, I needed to do more so I could focus on Christ so I volunteered for . . . " -- never realizing that what took their focus off God was that pile of stink.
Catholics who don't go to confession suffer from the same pilings. Soon they don't connect in Mass anymore. If they accept the Eucharist they realize they are doing so unworthily. It becomes uncomfortable so they don't attend Mass regularly. They are not involved in the Church. They lose their focus on Christ.
Jesus told us to do the laundry. Not to hide that stuff away in a hamper but to confess it. To actually have a time devoted to doing laundry when we strip down and assess everything. When our job is not just to "oops, sorry God." and continue on but time to really check ourselves over and examine every article of clothing so that we know that everything is clean and nothing stands between ourselves and God. This is to truly trust in the mercy of God -- not just for the big things but to keep our life free of the underlying stench of the little things. Jesus also knew that by having to drag it out to confess it we might realize that the day to day living brought similar dirt. If my socks are continually covered with mud, I might realize I walk in too many mud puddles and get help and advice on how to avoid those.
My husband is correct. Unless we strip naked we are just creating new laundry while trying to clean the old -- it is never really done. It's Biblical -- Adam and Eve never had dirty laundry when they were naked -- only when they knew the shame of sin did they start the ongoing laundry.
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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