Stinky Tuesdays

Tuesdays are very full. Tuesday is the day the vision clinic is open to the general public, and the night that we teach our English-outreach children's Bible class.

Tuesdays are also like the late February of the week. The time when all my "New Year's Resolutions" for a new week smack up into the reality of just serving Ramen noodles for lunch, and convincing myself I don't really have to wash the towels yet.

Tuesday's are the days I struggle most with the reality that wanting to "be a worker for the Lord" means your feet are going to hurt and that folks don't get the nickname "the least of these" by being charming.

Tuesdays are all too often the days that I don't want to do the things the calendar tells me it is time to do. Tuesdays are the days I struggle most with a grumpy attitude of selfishness.

Tuesdays can stink.

I mean this literally. The kids who come to our Bible class are among the poorest in the city. When your house is plastic, your floor is dirt, and you have only a few changes of clothes, being clean is not simple. There are some super cool kids we've known for years, and some wild free-range kids, who we are just getting to know. They are neat and special. But not necessarily easy to be around, and some are decidedly stinky.

Visitors to the vision clinic are also quite a cross section. Some have traveled from very rural places, others have just wandered in from the market. Some are acutely aware of their vision needs and are seeking specific solutions. Others are mainly bored and lonely and just looking for compassion in any form. Some are grateful and gracious and kind. Some are rude and demanding and frustrating. And some are very very stinky.

James 2 talks so specifically about our worldly tendency to struggle with loving the unlovable. Our trouble overcoming the urge to ignore and shoo away the stinky in favor of those who speak and act in more acceptable, familiar, comfortable ways.

James 2:2 For example, a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor man dressed in dirty clothes also comes in. 3 If you look with favor on the man wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor man, “Stand over there,” or, “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,” 4 haven’t you discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

This Tuesday as I sat beside a very poor "campesina" (country peasant) trying on various pairs of glasses I was reflecting on these verses. I was quoting them to myself in some mixture of exhortation and self-congratulation...

"Wow. My understanding of this chapter is so practical and tangible. It IS harder to give the same attention to this very smelly very dirty woman than it was to that clean professional worker a few minutes ago. And of course, it's not just the physical things--she is so reticent to speak, so clearly uncomfortable, but I am being patient and understanding.  I obviously need to keep working on all this, but I am really getting a chance to practice not showing favoritism in concrete ways and while I may be struggling a bit with it, I AM doing it. So, that's a first step, right? I am probably way better at this than a lot of people I know who would not hide their sentiments as well as I am. I mean, we all know we shouldn't value this smelly dirty lady less, but it's hard not to let that show. And after all, I am sitting right here with her, hugging on her and everything. Yep. I'm pretty awesome."

That's when it happened.
She left.
But the smell didn't.

Yea--that's right. That horrible dirty person smell was me.
I'd been congratulating myself for putting up with...myself.

Sometimes Tuesday stink. And I am the one who is stinking them up.

It shouldn't surprise me. He tried to tell us:

1 John 1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

Luke 6: 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.