The Basin and the Towel

I can remember being divorced and bitter. I was like Scarlet O'Hara, I was going to make it no matter what.
The bestseller of the year was Looking Out for Number #1. Even as a mother of three, that was my goal. No one was going to hurt me again.
I was going to make it and my children weren't going to have to go through what I had been through. Abuse always seemed to follow me. The spirit of victimization was worn like a wet raincoat. Nevertheless, I was a survivor.
Then there began a series of paradigm shifts. I joined a tiny Epicopal mission called St. Mary's. There were 13 members, mostly elderly. So my family increased enrollment by 25%. It was at St. Mary's that I learned about community.
Later after Ray and I were married there, St. Mary's became a shelter for those who lived in Adult Congregate Living Facilities.(ACLFs) Most were mentally disabled.
Ray had a servant's heart. I did not, but I wanted to be a good wife and I followed his lead.
Together we put on a Block Party for 500 people. Over half were ACLFers. The whole Diocese pitched in. The cost to St. Mary's was about $200. We got the mayor to close the streets. We had music, dance, face painting and a Southern barbecue. The people from other churches taught me once again about being a servant.
Still my real "a ha!" moment came when Fr. John asked once in a meeting, "If God asked you to show up each week, walk down the narrow hall of the classrooms and in the room at the end of the hall wash the feet of an elderly woman, could you do it? Could you do it if you could tell no one? No one would know or praise you? Could you do it just for the Father?
That was over 25 years ago, but sometimes when I examine my motives, I hear his questions. Am I doing it for man or as unto the Lord?
Recently I found a Michael Card song that expresses this completely. I have added the lyrics and the music.

THE BASIN AND THE TOWEL
Scribbling in the Sand: The Best of Michael Card (2002)

In an upstairs room, a parable
is just about to come alive.
And while they bicker about who's best,
with a painful glance, He'll silently rise.

Their Savior Servant must show them how
through the will of the water
and the tenderness of the towel.

And the call is to community,
The impoverished power that sets the soul free.
In humility, to take the vow,
that day after day we must take up the basin and the towel.

In any ordinary place,
on any ordinary day,
the parable can live again
when one will kneel and one will yield.

Our Saviour Servant must show us how
through the will of the water
and the tenderness of the towel.

And the space between ourselves sometimes
is more than the distance between the stars.
By the fragile bridge of the Servant's bow
we take up the basin and the towel.