I Love My Washing Machine!

I really do! And I love my laundry room, where I retreat almost daily to spot-clean clothes and clean out the lint trap. But until I read this book above, I hadn't realized the spiritual possibilities of making the laundry room a prayer closet. Barbara Curtis, mother of 12 and a recent revert to her childhood Catholic faith, details how to find spiritual solace in the most mundane of chores. On her blog she reflects:

I feel it's part of the rhythm of my life - almost as unchanging and dependable as God. It's a service I render to the people I love, thinking of it as a small reflection of Jesus washing his disciples' feet. more

Her book is wonderful Lenten reading. So it was natural for Barbara to stride into the fray when furor arose when the Vatican newspaper remarked on International Women's Day that the washing machine had done more to liberate women than the birth control pill. She has posted her own comments praising washing machines on her blog, along with some revealing and fun pictures and a poll. Enjoy, and if you agree, consider passing on the poll.

Once when I was rhapsodizing about the joys of the simpler life, a woman friend who had homesteaded for several years without electricity said, "I will never go back to living without a washing machine. It takes all day to do laundry without one." I said, "What did you do, then?" She thought and said simply, "You get used to living with less clean things and more dirt."

So reconsider the beauty of the humble washing machine: I think Mother Church is showing wisdom, as usual. What we take for granted. I pray my children live to see women in every part of the world gain washing machines of their own.