Of Stains and Dirty Fingernails

On Saturday this past week, I spent the entire day working in our vegetable garden. It was great! I harvested cabbage, picked green beans, peppers, and tomatoes, and poked around in the squash, watermelon, and cucumbers to see how they were doing. I also took the onions that had been harvested a week and a half ago from the garden shed, where they had been curing, downstairs to the basement baskets for storage. Such a relaxing and productive day!

Before calling it quits in the garden, I decided to prune and tie up the tomato plants. We (mostly) single stem our tomatoes, which means we prune the suckers, prune up to the first fruits, and prune most of the non-productive side shoots of the plants so that more of the plant’s energy goes into fruit production. As the plants grow and fruits form, it is important to keep pruning and tying up the plant to support it as it grows (sometimes up to 10 feet tall!) and produces fruit. So, that’s what I was doing. Pruning the plants and tying them up with elastic (so that there’s some give as the plant grows).

When I got inside following all of that pruning and tying, I looked down at my hands and my fingers, and they were stained green. There was dirt and green from the plants under my fingernails…a real mess! So I washed and scrubbed my hands and cleaned under my fingernails with manicure tools. Still, a green stain remained. On Sunday morning as I got ready for church, I scrubbed my hands and nails with a brush, but STILL, a green stain remained Even as I type this on Monday morning–after countless soaking and scrubbing sessions–a green stain remains on some of my fingernails. 

As I’ve reflected on the condition of my hands, I couldn’t help but wonder about what else leaves its stain or its mark on us. After another topsy-turvy week in politics, my mind immediately went toward the difficult or detrimental things that leave their marks on us:  The turmoil in our country, the uncertainty of our collective future, the anxiety of not knowing what will happen to the civil rights that so many of us count on–it all leaves a mark on our lives–our hearts, minds, and spirits. 

Beyond politics, however, there are myriad human experiences that leave their mark on us:  The stain of grief, the wound of abuse, the blemish of regret, and the smudge of mistakes we’ve made, all dot the landscape of our lives in ways that cannot be simply scrubbed off or pruned away. They are simply there–sometimes barely noticeable, other times, as fresh as the day they first made their mark on us–always present–even if in just the slightest of hues.

What I have realized, however, is that the terrible and difficult things are NOT the only experiences that leave their marks on us–it’s the wonderful, lovely, and beautiful experiences too. A first kiss, a knowing look shared with another, a Sunday morning service that offers a message that seemed tailor made for us, a silent morning with just a cup of coffee and our thoughts–all of them “stains” of goodness and grace that leave their mark on us too.

The truth is, that whether good, bad, or indifferent, the marks that are left on us as we live our lives can never really be pruned or scrubbed away. There’s always a stain of something–caught under our fingernails, splattered in our bones, smudged on our hearts. Which got me to thinking that perhaps the point of life isn’t to keep the stains at bay, or to rid ourselves of the smudges entirely. Perhaps the point is to live our lives in such a way that we, our church, our neighbors, our community, and our world carry fewer of the stains of anger and cruelty and hate, and more of the marks of compassion, the blotches of beauty, and the pigments of justice and mercy because we are here. Maybe, in the end, it’s not about how cleaned up we could pretend to be, or how sterile we have kept our relationships or our endeavors. Maybe it's about how many loving fingerprints we have left on each other’s hearts.

So this week, my friends, maybe stop scrubbing. Maybe stop working so hard to look perfect or be perfect or like your life is as cleaned up and together as you wish it was, and let the stains be. And maybe, put your energy instead into leaving some beautiful stains and smudges on the lives of others. The world doesn’t need more plastic people with perfect Instagram-worthy houses or families. The world needs more people walking around with love and compassion crammed under their fingernails, with more contentment and grace soiling their spirits, with more kindness and community staining our hearts.

Learning to put down the scrub brush with you,
Pr. Melissa​

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