Recently I found old blog entries from my LiveJournal days. Remember LiveJournal? Probably not since that was a million years ago when dinosaurs like MySpace and AOL roamed cyberspace.
I just had to repost this because it made me chuckle:
Our Bathroom, OurselvesEvery morning I use the second to last stall on the left. It's my old faithful because it's always clean whereas other ones have waste and toilet paper floating in them and driplets on the seat. I use that stall so often that I think I should dedicate my first CD album to it, Second to Last Stall on the Left.
That's all we ask for in a public bathroom. No repelling odors and a clean bowl and seat. Is that so hard? All too often, the answer is yes. We do very well in our own homes (most of us), but somehow, cleanliness and courtesy goes to pot as soon as anonymity is offered up.
Indeed, it takes real integrity to clean up after yourself (or even after someone else) instead of conveniently leaving things a mess in there for the next person. They say integrity is measured by what you do when no one else is looking. Well then, do we need more evidence for total depravity than the average filthy public restroom?
One of the best measures I've employed in charting my own Christian growth is my private public bathroom behavior.
When I was a child, my mother taught me to stand on the toilet seat and squat, thereby minimizing skin contact with the seat. Sometimes after traipsing in muddy fields, my shoes left discouraging wet brown marks on the seat. I was not taught to wipe them off. Pity the patron who was next.
But soon, when I got older and my mother stopped accompanying me into the stall, my conscience got the best of me and I thought it was rather rude to leave dirty shoe marks on the seat. Instead, I half-squatted and because I was short, mostly missed the seat, thereby usually leaving driplets on the seat. That wasn't very polite and I felt badly too, but I often found the seat to be wet and dirty already, so I rationalized that I wasn't really doing anything rude. The next person would just find it in about the same condition whether I went there or not.
But that gradually started to bother me too. I remember thinking to myself when I was around 8, if I loved my neighbor as myself, I would leave the stall as clean as possible. But since I couldn't bear the thought of wiping up urine and flushing down pre-existing waste left by the patron before me, I realized then and there that I was still a sinner in need of grace. I wondered one day if I would be sanctified enough to live up to such shining moral integrity.
Well...it's been a slow but upward journey and being married has helped a lot. When you're married you do have to think of the other person's comfort and touch other people's funkiness.
So next time you are in a public bathroom, just remember, you are only as good as your public bathroom behavior. Will you return an eye-sore for an eye-sore? Or will you stoop to wash another's dirtiness? Will you ignore the empty paper-roll and seat cover box? Or will you care for your fellow anonymous man?
