Toilets

Jesus is found in the little things.

I really believe that. Do you?

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Ever since I can remember, I've been the toilet-cleaner. I'm not speaking in metaphoric terms here (as I'm often prone to do), I'm being as literal as one can be. I remember cleaning toilets as part of my weekly chores growing up in the Graves household. In addition, I also was responsible for the dreaded taking-out-of-the-trash. Compared to scraping the remains of my family's dinner from the bottom of the porcelain throne (as it was called in my circles of friends in high school), taking out the trash was picking daisies.

It is hard to take yourself too seriously when you clean toilets. It gives you a sense that we are all, as Genesis gently reminds us, created from dust and to that dust we will all return. We are created, finite, beings. Complex? Of course. But temporary. At least for now.

I ate breakfast with a respected friend recently when he started telling me how he now cleans the toilets where he works. Every week, he loads up his three children, and for nearly three hours, they vacuum, wash, scrub and . . . miracle of miracles . . . they clean toilets. One little detail I've left out--this friend is the Vice President of this company, on his way to being President in a few short years.

Since Kara and I have been married it's my job to clean toilets. Now to be fair, I probably don't do as much "around the house" (a Midwestern expression) as I should. Kara pays the bills, organizes meals, cleans, monitors the social calendar (did I mention she's pregnant and a full-time grad student?), etc. But the responsibilities of cleaning toilets are set aside for moi.

Barbara Brown Taylor says, in An Altar in the World, that God erects altars all over the world. Spirituality is asking God to give us the eyes to see these holy intersection. In his day, Jesus told his disciples that they couldn't really be his apprentices until they learned to clean toilets. Actually, he said they had to learn to wash feet--one of the most degrading and disgusting acts in the first century.

If we were speaking to us today, I think Jesus would make us clean each other toilets. Seriously. When we moved into our first house, the one we currently live in, our friends, the Barton's (John, Sara, Nate and Brynn) were some of the first to arrive to help us move in. True to their character (they lived in East Africa for several years prior to coming to Rochester), their very first act was to clean both of our bathrooms and replace our toilet seats. Top to bottom. Cleaned to the last detail. Including the toilet.

I've been known tease John Barton (twice my boss: V.P. at RC and elder at Rochester Church) that I think of him every time I'm in my bathroom and . . . well . . . , I'll stop there.

Jesus said that his movement was about towels not titles. I'd like to think that we need to bring people to the same teaching. Jesus' movement is not about titles . . . it's about toilets.

I'm sure marketing guru's all over the world are salivating.