Recognizing the Holy Spirit: Taking Showers in Haiti

Friday, 11 September 2009

Recognizing the Holy Spirit: Taking Showers in Haiti
by Dean Lusk

When someone comes to Christ, he is to leave his old ways behind and take on the new nature -- the nature of Christ -- as he moves forward. (Let me clarify that the separation from the old happens after we come to Christ -- trying to become good enough to merit God's favor is an exercise in futility.) Romans 12:1-2 is one of the many wonderfully straightforward passages on this.

Unfortunately, many of us choose to not completely leave our old ways behind, because, let's face it, some of those ways are just so darned fun. And this following Christ bit...? It sounds like we won't get to do much fun stuff along the way, so we'll need to pack a little bag of the old to take with us, just in case we're right.

But any retention of the old things of self really messes up the new things in Christ.

I like Irish Spring soap. (Even rendered that sentence in green in its honor.) I love the original flavor, not Aloe scent or Action Sport or whatever thing they've come up with now to compete with other brands. Just plain ol' Original Irish Spring soap. And yes, I'll guarantee that it has a flavor, although I've not tasted it; I've only smelled it.

Having said all that, I used to like Irish Spring soap more than I like it now. Matter of fact, only nine days ago it was like soap utopia to me (Usoapia? or maybe Soapri La?) -- a blend of perfect smells. Now, though, this soap is more along the lines of, "It'll work but I don't love it." Here's why...

I took my hallowed Irish Spring soap to Haiti when our team went last Tuesday. I reasoned that if I were going to a place where I'd stink of B.O. because of potential sweat issues, having along the perfect soap would at least make a fresh, clean dent in the smell. For a couple of hours, anyway. That proved to be true! But here's the rest of the story...

Sarah the Haitian Mission Team Guru noted on our first day in Haiti that we needed to take "Haitian showers." This is how I'd render the step-by-step process of taking a Haitian Shower:
1. turn the non-heated water (that's all shower water) on
2. get wet
3. turn the water off to soap/shampoo
4. turn the cold water back on to rinse. Sure, you can turn on the "hot" water, too, but it won't really matter because it's the same temperature as the "cold" water.
Given this, I new right away that typical showers in Haiti are different from typical showers in the USA.
Because of this mental note, when I saw standing water in the bottom of the shower stall on the first evening, I reasoned that Haitian drains were typically backed up due to lack of USA-like plumbing. I was thinking, "Wow, this is disgusting" as my foot went into the standing water. I repeated the process daily, and since the water for washing in Haiti actually doesn't smell terribly good, the standing water really didn't smell good. Every day I'd grab the soap and think, "Irish Spring, help me out here," and it would always offer me a respite from the bad smell of the water at my feet. Every little break from the smell was good.
It wasn't until day eight, I think, that I found out that Haiti has a problem that the USA has. It's called "hair is stopping up the drain." That's a disgusting problem to fix, but it takes all of 30 seconds or so if the hair is close to the surface of the drain. I'd taken every single shower under the assumption that I could do nothing to fix the standing water problem. It could be that the hair thing just amplified an existing drainage problem, but I hadn't even checked. I felt silly.
I got home a little after midnight on Wednesday morning and took the long, hot shower I'd been looking forward to. The problem was that when I grabbed the Irish Spring and smelled it, I immediately mentally "experienced" the smell of dirty standing water. Yep, it's true. Now the smell of Irish Spring takes me back to one of those not-so-special-smelling times in Haiti.
The standing water represents the old nature of a believer. Irish Spring represents the Holy Spirit. After we "commit" our lives to following Christ but no effort is made to actually repent -- not just to move forward with a new outlook, but to intentionally remove the old things -- the experience (dare I say "experience"? I can't think of a better one here) of new life in Christ is horribly tainted. So tainted, in fact, that the good things that He gives us may be scarred because of the old things we wouldn't let go of.
I can think of a number of real-world examples of this principle. How about you?

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Comments (8)

That is a really original take on the new life. Thanks!
- 9/11/2009 9:51 PM
- ed408@xanga (message)
- reply
Too true. Bless you for sharing.
- 9/11/2009 9:53 PM
- mpwarren@xanga (message)
- reply
whoa. interesting. welcome to revelife! and..
I'm not entirely sure about the real-life application bit. for example, to take your analogy, i'm sure after a while (like a week or so) of using Irish Spring (I prefer Dove, but okay..) the mental association you make between it and sin diminishes. And if the analogy works, that means that I will mentally associate the Holy Spirit with the sin that it scrubbed me clean of. While it may bring up an association, it's not just a vague (I used this when this other horrible thing happened, so whenever I use it now, I'll remember the horrible thing) connection. It's a connection which reminds you that the Holy Spirit was the thing which scrubbed you clean of the muck that you were surrounded in. For me, that might be a good association which motivates me to move forward with the Spirit. But perhaps the baggage and the slowing down, the negative experience itself should be avoided.

Of course, we still shouldn't bring the bad with us. I think Jesus used the old wine in new winesacks analogy to express this..?
- 9/11/2009 10:02 PM
- nyclegodesi24@xanga (message)
- reply
Wow neat annalogy!
- 9/11/2009 10:17 PM
- sick_of_dreams@xanga (message)
- reply
I love this! Rec'd. :)
- 9/12/2009 10:31 AM
- Charity_the_So_Called_Artist@xanga (message)
- reply
That is so gross. You really should have tried to fix the drain.
- 9/12/2009 11:36 AM
- subSacred@xanga (message)
- reply
I am 76. What I found out about my old nature is that it stayed young. I wants to exert itself all the time. Old bad enjoyable habits have to be dealt with too often. I know Christ lives in me and Christ has changed me, but that old nature sure does smell. Ivory Snow won't help--not even Irish Spring. I love what you learned--Excellent application.
blessings
FRANK
- 9/12/2009 4:04 PM
- FRANK (message)
- reply
Ain't no soap powerful enough for my sin, I is covered in the Blood of the Lamb!
That's some good washing up stuff right there!
Nice post.
x
- 9/12/2009 4:59 PM
- wherever_we_go@xanga (message)
- reply

About the Author

From: deanlusk
Name: Dean
About Me: I'm the Worship Pastor at Wall Highway Baptist Church in Madison, AL. However, EGBDF (http://deanlusk.blogspot.com/) is a personal blog. Here you'll find a pretty wide variety of my opinions, (not necessarily reflective of those of my church fellowship), some of yours, some from people you've never met, etc. While I occasionally police comments, remember that the views and opinions expressed here are the express property of the one who put them here.