DIRTY LAUNDRY

9/28/09 Mother didn’t believe in airing your dirty laundry. But she believed in laundry---in the finest sense of the word and gave meticulous attention to hers. Daddy used to tease that when dropping his previously worn shirt into the pile, Mother would have it washed, ironed and hanging in his closet before it even had time to reach the floor. She had a routine. That’s putting it mildly!
She preferred Tide in general and Ivory Snow for her whites. Her bleach of choice was Purex®, nothing else. She was a Purex purist.
After washing, the clothes went to the backyard clothesline to dry, at least all her linens did. Some how the smell of those sheets drying in the sun and breeze of the day is still fresh in my memory. A bag hung on one end of the line and she would use one clothespin to attach two articles of clothing at the same time. An amazing feat to my young eyes. Her “unmentionables” never made it to the clothesline but dried on a wooden drying rack set up on the latticed back porch. The lattice provided ventilation but kept the laundry view obstructed.
Mother starched everything (made her own starch, I think) and also “sprinkled” her clothes before ironing---maybe everyone did in this era before steam irons. Most of the time she took a Coke bottle that was filled with water---that had a strainer cap on the top which she’d created by poking holes in the lid with an ice pick---and sprinkled each item as we ironed. Sometimes she’d just dip her fingers into a bowl of water and sort of sling the water off of her fingertips. If she didn’t finish all the ironing she’d roll the sprinkled items in a terry cloth towel and put it in the back refrigerator until the next ironing day. I never did laundry growing up and Mother even re-ironed our ironing lady’s attempts. I told you she took it seriously.
Mama Davenport, on the other hand, involved me in “wash days” at her house. On my summertime visits I would help her lug the laundry down to the basement at 416 South Second in Clarksville, TN. That’s where the wringer washing machine was---hand powered, I might add. She would hand feed the clothing through the press to squeeze the water out of the clothing. As she cranked, I would pull the clothes through. They came out looking like flat but crumpled sheets of paper. Though her horror stories about cousin Joy’s hand getting caught, and of hands and arms dismembered from machines like this kept me vigilant at all times, I never missed an opportunity to be with Mama. I don’t remember any other particulars except that she had bottles of bluing sitting on a nearby ledge (that stuff is probably only used for science projects these days) and we had to be quiet when we were down there because the young army couple from Fort Campbell who rented her basement apartment had a new baby.
Most often Mama Davenport hung her clothes on a line in the basement to dry---making it a great place to hide or run under and she never seemed to care. She also had a carousel clothesline which Dang-Dang had placed in a corner of the yard up near the back of the house. I guess he didn’t want folks to view their laundry either.
Warning---No clotheslines allowed. That’s the rule of the neighborhood I’ve lived in for 33+ years. Seems like every one is against laundry of any kind---maybe that’s because it reveals too much about who we really are. I was once in a church like that as well. Yesterday, Pastor Cole talked of Aristotle’s strata of friendship---and we don’t confess our sins (dirty laundry) to just anyone but only to those whom we know well enough to take relational risks. Maybe we need warning labels like the ones on the laundry tags of our clothing. Wash separately. Maybe you only share your dirty laundry with the Lord. Or, share your dirty wash with like colors only---with like-minded close friends, who know you as well as you know them and don’t recoil but hold you accountable in love thus not allowing your sin to bleed into other areas of your life.
Everyone has dirty laundry. Whether you hang it out for the world to see (think some celebrities) or in a back corner of a yard or on a latticed back porch where only a trusted few can see it or in the deep recesses of the basement (your heart) where only God sees it, it’s there. Just know that if the filth is left hidden in the hamper, it becomes stinky and it can indeed permeate all that’s around it.

Today is Monday and at 2211 (my KY childhood home) Monday was the main laundry day. So, today’s meditation coincides with that memory as I seek to clean my heart. This time you choose the one that is best for you and where you are in the laundry room of your life today.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin. Purify me with hyssop, (could be the Clorox disinfectant of biblical times) and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:2,7

Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. I Corinthians 6:11 (Ask God how you can be “washed.”)

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, Ephesians 5:25-26 (Do you desire your husband to read God’s Word aloud to you? Does hubby know that?)

let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:22 (How can we “sprinkle” our hearts clean?)

Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name. Acts 22:16 (Is this action needed in your laundry room?)

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1: 8-9 (ALL our dirty laundry---what a praise that is!)

I am ready to do a little laundry. Hope you join me.