Weeping in the Kitchen
It swept over me as I took a knife to the last bit of soft butter. The little pat in the glass dish was just enough for the potatoes I intended to mash.
But a few toast crumbs, and maybe even a spot of pomegranate jelly, stained it. That bit o’butter wasn’t pure. I could fix it easily enough, though. I carved away the blemishes, flicking them from the point of the knife into the porcelain sink, an abyss housing a monster that waited to grind our garbage to oblivion. I felt as clever as a surgeon, or a high priest.
Scraping the butter into the potato pot, I watched it melt and disappear. I poured in a splash of hot milk, sprinkled salt and pepper in the midst. I seized the silicone masher, so glad I could smash the spuds right in the pot without damaging its expensive finish.
Who’s grateful for a silicone potato masher? I wondered. Who’s gratified to find one little tablespoon of butter marred by specks of breakfast?
What kind of fool is indebted for crumbs?
Me. I am the fool who is thankful for the crumbs. How much time do we spend making dirty things clean? How often do we carve little spots of impurity from the butter, file the ragged edge from a nail, chase the crumbs from the table, pluck a wayward hair?
Stuff gets dirty over and over and over. So do we. But I can render them clean for next to nothing: A moment of my time, enough electricity to run the washer, a nickel’s worth of soap. I’m provisioned–I have not only the bread to shed the crumbs, but the butter to trap them, too.
And I used to be so dirty.
And it wasn’t next-to-nothing that washed me clean. Nope. The God-Man gave His blood to wash me clean.
A giant cloud of gratitude drifts in my kitchen. Come over for coffee and be thankful with me.
18 “Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord,
“Though your sins are as scarlet,
They will be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They will be like wool.
19 “If you consent and obey,
You will eat the best of the land;
20 “But if you refuse and rebel,
You will be devoured by the sword.”
Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah 1:18-20 (NASB)
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