Friday, 18 Apr 2003
SEATTLE, Wash.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece “The Last Supper” shows Jesus and his followers at the table. Da Vinci doesn’t depict what happened after dinner. In Jesus’s time, like today, the Middle East was hot and dusty, and sandals were the all the rage when it came to foot fashion. Feet got dirty, and washing them was the task of servants and slaves.
After the last supper, the Bible says, Jesus surprised his disciples by rising from the table and commencing to wash their feet. When he was finished, Jesus said to them, “Do you understand what I have done for you? As I have done, so you must do.”
Since ancient times in the Catholic Church, the pedilavium (washing of the feet) has been commemorated on Holy Thursday. Water and washing are recurrent themes in Catholic theology and practice. Later today, I’ll fly to Montana to witness the baptism of my little niece and nephew, Jacob and Sarah, my brother’s twins.
In the Catholic tradition, baptism is a symbolic cleansing. In the Rite of the Christian Initiation of Adults (the Catholic playbook for baptizing) there is this general instruction: “the water should be true water, and, both for the sake of authentic symbolism and for hygienic reasons, [it] should be pure and clean.”
I am confident that the water Jacob and Sarah get dunked into on Easter Sunday will be pure and clean. This is no small blessing, and not something I take for granted.
Three years ago, I traveled to Thailand to teach English at a Buddhist monastery in Bangkok. Every morning I rode a motorcycle taxi to work. In the afternoons, I explored the city.
The longtail boats on the Chao Praya River are long and fast, driven by small propellers hooked to airplane engines. They’re a great way to get to and from various sites in Bangkok. When the driver lowers the propeller into the river, the boat jumps quickly to 20 or 30 miles per hour.
Before my first longtail ride, my ex-pat companion warned me to keep my mouth closed while on the water. He told me that the Chao Praya was so polluted that passengers had been known to get sick from the spray off the prow of the boats. I pressed my lips together and clambered aboard.
About 20 minutes into our ride, we slowed and approached a dock to pick up more passengers. Near the dock were several shanty houses, home to some of Bangkok’s many poor. These loosely constructed shacks line the Chao Praya for miles, tiny homes with no running water or sewers but the river itself.
Beside the boat dock, two small boys, only six or seven years old, were bathing in the fetid water. As I watched them, my mouth still closed against the river’s pathogens, I was filled with sadness. I wondered how long the boys’ fragile bodies would survive alongside the Chao Praya. The image of them laughing and playing in the filthy river has stuck with me since I returned to the U.S.
When I think of the pedilavium and how I might humbly serve my community, I am grateful for the opportunity provided by my job. The Friends of the Cedar River Watershed staff, dedicated volunteers, and a growing community of supporters serve the community by helping to maintain a pure and clean water source for our children. In that way, they help these same children grow up to travel, to learn about the many other creatures that depend on clean water, and maybe even to be inspired to participate in their own watersheds’ protection and restoration. I plan to mention it to my niece and nephew when they’re older.
