Getting Dirty

I was in session with a client the other day who was talking about some of her life’s experiences.  She was saying that when she looks back on some of the things she’s done she feels so disgusted with herself that she can hardly stand to think about it.  

I asked a few questions to try to clarify.   She opened the door to her pain a little further.  Then she took a deep breath.  

“I know that God loves me,” she said in a trembling voice.  “I believe that God loves everyone.  But when I actually think about that…I mean…I know what I am.  I know what I’ve done.  What I’m guilty of.  I am so dirty.  So how can I really think that I’m not too dirty for God? I mean, maybe the truth is that God loves everyone….except me.”

The tears had started to come then.  I sat quietly while she took a few minutes to collect her thoughts.  Then we spent the rest of the session focused on shame, and what it is to be dirty.

On my drive home I thought about times when I’ve gotten dirty.  As a kid whenever I was at my dirtiest my cousin Sue, born four days after me, was usually on the scene.  Whatever trouble either of us were capable of by ourselves grew exponentially when we were together.  But there was one time in particular that always comes to the forefront of my memory when I think about getting dirty.  

It was late summer before our sixth grade year when my Uncle Carl said he’d pay us ten cents a pint to pick blackberries in their pastures. Sue and I had picked and picked most of that day.  We competed with the horses for the juiciest berries.  And were scared half out of our wits dozens of times to find giant spiders lounging on their webs right next to our faces while we reached for the best berries.  We picked until our fingers were purple and our arms and legs were scratched and scraped from the defending thorns.

I vaguely recall one of us finding an old rusted out child’s wagon buried deep in the wild blackberry bushes that day.  We wrestled it free from its entangled grave and then used it as a makeshift ladder to reach the upper branches.  While one of us balanced precariously on the rickety old wagon, the other stood behind steadying the climber with one hand grabbing hold of the back of her shirt.

It seems in my clouded memory that it was something to do with that rusty old wagon that ultimately led to the battle.  And although Sue’s recollection may be better than mine, in my memory I’m fairly certain that the first transgression was hers.

Regardless, one of us threw a blackberry at the other one.  It connected with a juicy splat, and was swiftly answered with a volley from the other side.  We’d been picking for the better part of the day, carrying our wealth in buckets wherever we went.  By the time the war began, we were both fairly well-armed.

What had started with individual berries being thrown, escalated to entire handfuls of berries being lobbed.  We quickly discovered that if we partially crushed a handful of berries before we lobbed them it made for a bigger impact.  And somewhere amidst the escalation, the argument became play.  We chased each other through the pasture, ducking in and around berry bushes, using the horses as living shields, dodging spider webs and manure piles.  We kept at it, lobbing rounds of smooshed blackberries at each other, until our munitions were spent.  Then with empty, stained buckets in tow we collapsed to the ground.  Exhausted and filthy.

We’d worked all day long and had nothing to show for it except our own filth, which was significant. Dirt and grass stains, dried bloody scratches from thorns, all saturated in purple blackberry juice.  

After a few minutes of sitting on the grass catching our breath, we carefully devised a plan.  We had to get clean.  And at some level we must have known that no one but the two of us would understand how this had happened.  That at the time having a blackberry fight had not only seemed like a good idea but had in fact been entirely necessary.    

We snuck up to the house, tiptoed through the backdoor, straight into the bathroom.  We took turns showering and scrubbing.  We shampooed and lathered until the suds no longer ran purple.  Then we put on clean clothes and hollered to my Aunt Elaine that we would throw in a load of our clothes because we may have gotten “a little stained” from picking berries.

And just like that we were good as new.  The dirt and dried blood had washed off easily.  And with a little scrubbing even most of the berry stains had come out.

I recall my Uncle Carl smiling at us later with a certain twinkle in his eye.  And I’ve always suspected that he knew about the battle out in the pasture, and what had happened to all the berries.  But he was generous enough to never say anything about it.

I don’t think either Sue or I were ever concerned that this time we might just have gotten too dirty.  That this one time there was no turning back, no way to ever get clean again. No way to ever just be Sue and Ruth again.  I’m pretty sure, in the wisdom of 11-year-olds, we probably just shrugged and said something about “just needing a little soap and water.”

I think that day was a life lesson for me.  A lesson on getting dirty.  And that even at our absolute dirtiest, we’re still just us.  And I’m convinced that God must smile at us sometimes with a certain twinkling eye, wondering if we’re ever going to admit what really happened out there.  But being generous enough not to ever say anything about it.

Because the truth is that there’s nothing we can ever possibly do to make ourselves so dirty, so permanently dirty, that we can never be made clean again. And with a little scrubbing, even the stains come out.