Saturday Prayer – While Washing the Dishes

A plate, a cup, a bowl, a spoon.
It is morning, and I am washing yesterday’s dishes.

Forgive me for the sin of leaving these dishes unwashed.
And for the other sin of wishing I hadn’t left the dishes unwashed
And for the further sin of convincing myself I’m probably a very bad person for leaving the dishes unwashed.
And for the compounded sin of regretting all the dishes I have ever left unwashed and anticipating all the dishes I will continue to leave unwashed.

Help me instead be fully right here, Brother Christ, hands in warm water.
Each plate: Your Body, broken and re-made whole, day after day.
Each cup: a container for holy water for all water is holy, as all creation is holy.
Each bowl: the warmth of food shared with beloveds, Your abundance at every table.
Each spoon: the beauty of simplicity, the perfection of utility.

It is morning, and I am washing yesterday’s dishes.
A plate, a cup, a bowl, a spoon.

Amen.

Jennifer Garrison Brownell serves as pastor at First Congregational Church -UCC in Vancouver, Washington.  She contributed to the Revgals book There’s a Woman in the Pulpit and is the author of the not-really-about-a-triathlon memoir Swim, Ride, Run, Breathe: How I Lost a Triathlon and Caught My Breath. She blogs at There Is a River.

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