I asked for topics and questions, and that’s what I got.  Thanks for your suggestions!

For the more theological, spiritual, and Biblical questions, it will take me a while to write a clear and concise response to share with you.

The following item is a little less complicated.  Someone asked: “Have you ever wondered why dress socks are more comfortable than athletic socks?”

Well, no I haven’t, actually.  I tried to find a Biblical reference to socks, but all I came up with were a few items about not being worthy to tie the thongs of the sandals of Jesus’ feet, shaking the dust off your feet at an unbelieving community, and the symbolism of foot washing to servanthood and Christian discipleship.  But now that it’s been brought up I have been paying way too much attention to my socks and how my feet have felt while wearing different kinds of socks.

Here are my musings on socks from this past week:

• Sunday – dress socks, 70-30 blend, a little thin for the weather, but comfortable.
• Monday – casual socks, 100% cotton, thicker than dress socks, and work well with my shoes, very comfortable.
• Tuesday – athletic socks from REI, a blend of high tech fabrics, warm and comfortable
• Wednesday – casual socks, a less expensive pair that I’ve had for a while, too thin in spots, uncomfortable enough to toss.
• Thursday – casual socks, another old pair of socks, reminds me I haven’t bought new socks in a while.
• Friday – yet another old pair of socks, even a little hole by the toe.  Hmm, time for a run to Target.
• Saturday – a warm comfy pair of socks!
• Sunday – wore a pair of dress socks for the 13 hours I was at church, and my feet felt just fine.

My conclusion has to be, whether you are wearing dress socks or athletic socks, wear socks that aren’t old and thin nor socks with holes.  I also was reminded that feet sweat a lot!  According to the website “How Stuff Works” – “With more than 250,000 sweat glands each, your feet are among the most perspiring parts of the body. In one day, each foot can produce more than a pint of sweat!”  Eewww!

Now the reason why I am trying to gross you out with that tidbit of information is to set the stage for a story about learning to be a servant and disciple of Jesus Christ through the aforementioned ritual of washing feet.

It was the final night of our two week church camp counselor training.  We were gathered in a circle in the main lodge for worship and the ritual of foot washing, as a sign of our servant life together as a community of Christian disciples.  We had been tromping around camp all day long wearing our heavy hiking boots (this was at Christikon in the mountains of Montana!).  It had been an exhilarating two weeks of learning, growing, and bonding with new friends.  I was sitting happily on the floor in the circle between two of my new friends, as the wash basin and towel came around.  One by one we knelt at the feet of our friends, took off their shoes or boots, and then washed their feet.  The guitars were playing and people were singing and crying with the powerful spirit of the whole experience, when my buddy leaned over and whispered, “you’ll have to skip me.”

“Wha’?” I mumbled.

“You’ll have to skip me.  If you take off my boots, my bad foot odor will kill you and everyone else in a five mile radius!”  (OK, he didn’t say a “five mile radius” or “kill you” but he was serious.)

Then the wash basin and towel were passed to me.  My friend gave me a look of fear and I hesitated.  But feeling all eyes upon me I started to untie his boots, which took a while, until I slowly started to take the first boot off.  I never knew that smells could hurt!  I jerked away gagging.  The people on either side of us leaned as far away as possible, covering their faces.  My friend just shrugged, as if to say, “I warned you.”

As I tried to control myself (ask my wife about my changing diapers sometime, if you need a good laugh), I then realized I still had to take off his sock!!!

Now at this point I began to realize that what had started out as a touching, powerful experience to complete our training as Christian church camp counselors, had taken on a new, less pleasant, though more deeply spiritual and powerful experience for me.  ”Servanthood,” “discipleship,” “community in Christ,” these are all nice, feel-good phrases and concepts, if you can keep them abstract, sterile, and clean, and away from your nose.  But when a person, and not a concept, is in front of you, and you are called to be their servant, that’s when things get hard, messy, and very, very real.  Truth be told, it is something that we avoid.  Not only don’t we want people to take off those things that hide and cover up the “stinky” parts of our own lives, we don’t want to have to deal with the “stinky”
problems of others either.  So we smile nicely at each other and sweetly reply that everything is going “just fine,” even when it is not.  We all know that isn’t what community in Christ or Christian discipleship is about, but at least it doesn’t smell, or offend us, or challenge us to go beyond our own comfort zone and resources to rely on God for help.

I have to admit that I only washed his one foot.  Partially because of the, well, smell, and because everyone else was waiting for us to finish up (that’s my lame excuse, and I’m sticking with it!).

So, from a question about the comfort of socks, to the discomfort of discipleship and servanthood.  Keep those questions coming, you never know where they will end up.