Cleaning the church

Adam and I were part of the crew cleaning the church early Saturday morning.  Sun was streaming in the glass in one of the foyers, highlighting how terrible the windows looked.  Someone must have cleaned them with disinfectant or something because they looked bad.

Julia began gathering and emptying all the trash, Ethan started vacuuming the chapel, Verdon cleaned the kitchen and then started vacuuming.  Garrett was vacuuming the halls and classrooms too.  He had his toddler there in a stroller.  (His wife was home with their newborn.) Tara and Sione arrived and started in on the bathrooms.  Adam and I tackled the windows.

It didn't go too well.

We sprayed and wiped and wiped and sprayed.

I despaired of how they still didn't look great and Julia told me, "The windows look a lot better than they did."

We moved on to other windows around the church and while I was cleaning the inside and Adam was cleaning the outside, I thought about serving in the church.

Sometimes we botch things.   Sometimes we say the wrong thing and offend someone; we don't follow through with an assignment; we fail to come prepared. Sometimes we forget something important.  Sometimes we use disinfectant instead of glass cleaner.  

Sometimes, even if we're doing the right thing, using the glass cleaner, we don't feel like we are too successful.

Sometimes our children are the ones who make tiny handprints on the glass doors and sometimes we're the ones wiping the tiny handprints of someone else's children.

I guess what matters most is in the showing up.  I loved being there with my neighbors, fanned out across the church, cleaning it.  It occurred to me how sturdy the church is and that it was OK if we weren't perfect at our jobs.  We were trying.

Also, I showed Julia and Tara pictures of my granddaughter and Julia, whose daughters are friends with Braeden and Emma and who has grandchildren of her own, cried when she saw a picture of Braeden holding his baby girl.  Tara grew up in Virginia Beach and her parents are Braeden's (and my) friends.  Ever since his mission, Tara has had an interest in Braeden's life and she and I feel connected.

I guess if you ever want to feel part of something good, show up when it's your turn to clean the church early on a Saturday morning.

***

When our children were little, Adam started the tradition of taking them to McDonald's for breakfast after cleaning the church.  It was a reward for their service.  We still do it.  When the teenager at the drive thru window handed us our Diet Cokes (breakfast of champions!) we noticed that they were different sizes.  They weren't different enough sizes that one was a medium and one was a large, but they were different.

Ever curious and a seeker of answers, Adam asked, "Why are they different sizes?"

The morose boy said, "They aren't."

Adam said, "Look!" and he held them up to each other.

The boy was completely disinterested and mumbled, "Huh, I don't know," and sent us on our way.

The whole thing mystified and sort of delighted us enough that we took a picture and texted our kids (there's a reason cell phones were invented and it is to send pictures of two Diet Coke cups to your kids).

Mark immediately texted back:

And he was right!  I wanted to go back and tell the kid at McDonald's but I don't think he was nearly as perplexed by the whole thing as we were.

All of this is to say:  we're having adventures over here.