Sounds of Comfort and Care

On a chilly morning, I find the rhythmic sound of the dryers at Manna House tumbling clothes cozy and comforting. I feel coziness from the dryer’s warmth being shared with the clothes. And I feel comfort from old memories of hearing the dryer at home where my basement bedroom was located just off the laundry room. In this coziness and comfort, I experience a sense of peace, a sense of being at home. Home is not only where the heart is; home is also where the laundry is done.

 

Like home, doing laundry is a constant at Manna House. Unlike home, with twenty guests showering each morning, our laundry is heavy on towels and washcloths. And there is also a larger than normal number of other items to be laundered. Guests who shower get a complete set of fresh clothing, and they turn in their socks, underwear, jeans, t-shirts, long-sleeve shirts, and sweatshirts. We launder all the clothes that are salvageable.

 

The large loads of laundry remind me that doing laundry is not only a part homemaking, it is also a sacred practice within hospitality. We have this laundry to do because we welcome Christ in the guests and Christ comes wearing dirty clothes and needing a shower. So, doing the laundry at Manna House is doing Christ’s laundry. And Christ’s dirty clothes smell, but not like incense.

 

As I listened this morning to the dryers, I knew Christ’s laundry had been washed and was clean, with laundry sheets providing an additional fresh smell. With this in mind, the rhythm of the dryers, also felt like the comfort of a familiar hymn, singing of God’s presence when hospitality is offered. 

 

Warmth. Memories. Home. Hospitality. Divine Presence. I guess they were all tumbling around in the dryers. I was reassured by the sound of care, of being nurtured and loved. And in these days when people without homes are offered punitive policing, when homes are destroyed by immigration officers, cities are occupied by military forces, food is denied to the hungry, when the nation’s constitutional household is under attack, and the specter of resuming nuclear weapons testing threatens our home planet, I need these sacred reminders of God’s comfort and care, of God’s call to home. 

 

All around there is deep injustice, corruption, venality, meanness. Here in the laundry room at Manna House, I hear a counter-sound in the dryers, a revolutionary resistance to these times. God speaking as the clothes turn, “Comfort, comfort my people… with gentle words, tender and kind” (Isaiah 40:1-2).