amen.

i listen to church on the radio on sunday mornings. more often than not i also clean the kitchen during this time.

and during every service there is a time when they invite people to pray as they are able. standing, kneeling, sitting, etc.

this morning when they issued the invitation i was scrubbing the pan i used to roast the veggies in last night for the friends we had to dinner. thinking about how even our leanest times when we had so very little and everything was hard and tenuous we have always been able to eat. to feed our children. to feed others. how lucky we have been. we are.

i was washing the champagne flute that my friend ingrid used last night. carefully wiping the remains of her lipstick from the rim. thinking about what a beautiful person she is, inside and out. how i am so happy to know her. how lucky any of us are to have friends, let alone such precious ones.

i scraped the remains of the sauteed kale from a dinner plate. thinking about how lucky i am to have such wonderful sons. sons i can say, hey, can you prep the kale for tonight and they do. they can. they understand exactly what i mean. they do not fuss. they do not protest. they prep the kale and mop the floors and tidy the living room. i work and they work so that we can have friends over and no one person is stuck with all the tasks that involve having friends over.

i washed my husband's beer glass and thought of how he helped with dinner and cleaned the bathroom and at the end of the night he put me to bed after too much fun and way too much wine. and then before he went to bed he went downstairs and broke down the extra table and put away the extra chairs and the leftover food and washed the grossest pan and stacked the dishes and tidied the kitchen then woke up and made me coffee and breakfast. how he works so hard and supports so much. how lucky i am. we are.

in this way, i pray. i assume the position that is most comfortable to me. in the place i spend so much of my time. i think about the people i love. i think about the foods i make to feed these people. i think about the mess that comes from gathering people together, dirty dishes, a cracked champagne flute, a lost DS game and how easy it is to say aw, why bother. people don't bother. it's easy with e-mail and facebook and smart phones to bother less and less.

and as i dump the dishwater and rinse out the sink and take off my gloves and take off my apron and wash my hands and finally put lotion on i walk into the dining room and see them. three juice glasses, a coffee cup, and the platter with leftover breakfast potatoes.

i take a deep breath and prepare to get really irritated and just then i remember what i heard earlier on church on the radio: we don't love someone because they are perfect. we love someone because we do.

life isn't perfect. life is messy. feeding people is messy. cleaning up after takes a long time. it'd be easier to just not bother. so i take another deep breath and i grab the three juice glasses and the coffee cup and the platter with the leftover breakfast potatoes. and i put the potatoes in a tupperware and i wash the juice glasses and the coffee cup and the platter.

and i wash my hands again. put on more lotion. glad that i bother. lucky.

x.