showers and wineskins

"Take warning, fellow associate of the fraternity of this shower: only the fool believes that the tangible dirt and grime of the external world is the sole thing carried away by the drain.  The wise man sees more than is before his eyes; he is spectator to a world at work within this temple of tile and glass.  And what does he see here?  A curious theater of mystical exploit, where actor and audience are ominously fused.  As he retells the histories of old and weaves glorious dramas yet to come, the water permeates the pores of his soul and washes away the ethereal impurities unknown to simpleton gaze.  Keep in mind this solemn task, good sir, as you step into this vault of enlightenment."

     I wrote these words on the shower door in my brother's apartment.  He had a glass shower, and he wrote things on it in dry-erase marker.  So one day I grabbed a marker and scribbled this (backwards, so it could be read from inside the shower) on the door.  It filled the whole door.  6 months later, I returned to his apartment and it was still there, which is one of the greatest compliments I've ever been given. 

     If for some reason Jesus had come to the earth at the present time, would he have used modern day analogies instead of the old ones?  Like, instead of, "don't put new wine in old wine skins" he might have said something like, "don't eat a steak dinner at McDonald's" or "don't put freshly laundered clothes on before taking a shower."  (As much as I cringe that McDonald's might have ended up in scripture, it would have been kinda neat.)
     Don't put on clean clothes before you take a shower.  It's good advice. Clean clothes are, for some reason, aesthetically perfect.  The fresh smell and crisp clean feel. How dare I desecrate the holiness of clean clothes with an unclean body? I just can't.  It would simply be wrong.  And if Jesus had been around, it would have been biblically immoral. 

     Showers are pretty special as well.  For me, a shower is not just a place that one cleans one's body.  It's a vault of wonder in which the secret thoughts of my life can be uttered at a low volume and examined out in the open.  New ideas are turned over, scrubbed from error, and clean prose is left behind.  Any troubling things can be discarded and washed down the drain.  Sometimes I remember things that happened, replaying the entire situation in the comfort of my private rainy fortress.  It's like confession or spiritual direction, but it happens every day. 
     I love walking into a bathroom shortly after someone took a shower.  You know what it feels like.  It smells nice, like Pert and Garnier and Old Spice, and the air is thick with humidity.  But it's not just hot perfumed water that hangs in the air; the thoughts and stories of the shower-goer are there too. They are all floating in the air, and they smell nice, and the experience is almost too intimate for it to be comfortable. 
     Walking into the bathroom shortly after someone showered there is what I imagine it must feel like to enter someone else's mind.  When I was a kid, I sometimes imagined walking out of my head and into someone else's.  Entering their brain was like walking into a thick cloud of swirling colors and sounds.  And it felt and smelt like it does when you walk into a bathroom after someone's showered.  Thick and humid and lovely in an odd sort of way.

     But anyway, imagine that wonderful post-shower feeling of clean.  So fresh and wonderful, both internally and externally.  How inappropriate it would be if you dried off and put on your dirty clothes.  Just wrong (and if Jesus had been around during our time, biblically immoral).  
     No, it must be ordered.  Clean bodies must be put it clean clothes, just like new wine must be put in new wine skins.  Jesus said so.