About Feet

I've been thinkin', lately, about feet. And not in the unsmelly abstract, either.
I don't mean feet as in 'hallmark of bipedal locomotion.' I'm talking actual, real-life, sometimes-they-stank FEET. Those funny sprouts at the bottom of our legs, where we keep our bumps and lumps, bones and bulges. They kind of gross me out, feet do, and yet I have made a study of them for days....

1. On Sunday, I went to a funeral and sat by a lady with untended toes.

At first, I was bothered by the chipped red toenail paint. Seriously bothered. Obsessively bothered. Why could I even see her toes, I wondered. "Isn't there a dress code for these things? Surely this is disrespectful." But, then, later, either sweating through a song or straining to hear a prayer from the un-airconditioned outer foyer, I just stopped caring. In fact, it occured to me to be pleased that my seat-mate hadn't stayed home just because she had chipped paint. Even with better polish, those were gonna be ugly, those toes. But their owner sure put them to good purpose that day.

2. On Wednesday, I went to pick up my son and walked into a shoe swap-meet, little barefoot kids trying on each other's sweaty sandals and the dress-up shoes.

One boy named Seth, in particular, was working the floor in a construction T-shirt, red shorts and pink glittery mules.

My first thought was, "EEEWW!" Then, "What about that Seth?" As jarring as the image first was -- Seth also had two handbags and a crown -- I also liked the kid's bold choice. I felt very bad, momentarily, that boys are not given glitter as a shoe adornment. (Come to find out, Seth had hidden his white K-Swisses in order not to put them back on, so I guess he was bummed, too.) Later, I was struck by how easily little kids will shed their shoes, expose their feet, and slip into someone else's. How personal is that? Of all the clothes sharing I did in high school and college, I don't know that I ever wore another girl's shoes.
How naturally children discard the carefully chosen coverings we parents place on their feet. Grown-ups hardly ever even bare their feet. Swap their shoes. ...Or hide them in favor of pink glittery mules.



3. On Thursday, I lay in a pool and thought nice thoughts about my own feet.

I hardly ever lounge in pools -- and certainly not on weekdays -- but I did, just this once, to mark the advent of a new school year. I was with three friends, each of us reclined on full-length floaties in the still water so that we formed 4 islands of relative flatland save for the plastic margarita tumblers attached to our hands or balanced on our bellies. I lay there for the longest, enjoying the peace and staring straight ahead at my own two feet. I was feeling so charitable towards them. (And the margarita had NOTHING to do with it!) Instead of noticing my own wayward pedicure, or my flip-flop callouses, or my dropped-paint-can scar, I thought they looked like nice feet. Honest feet. Good little soldier feet! They're nicely sturdy, and not THAT big. Like James Cromwell in Babe, I was thinking, "That'll do, piggies. That'll do."


You know, it SEEMS awfully random, this foot silliness. But I have found, when small details lodge in my mind and there group with like items, it's usually a God thing. Some bit of wisdom or deeper peace He is patiently, painstakingly, repeatedly trying to give me, in that awesome, Spirit-of-wind-and-fire-and-quiet-stillness way God speaks to us all. Lately, He is speaking to me through feet.


"He got up from the meal, took of his outer clothing and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, 'Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

'You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.' "
--John 13:4-7 (NIV)