Lots of people have written and spoken about the importance of being kind to each other. The people that immediately come to mind are Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, and Mother Theresa. Then contemporary writers George Saunders and Maria Popova. I’m sure there are many others. What they neglected to mention was the importance of washing dishes together.
About a week ago, I met with a kind woman who was feeling broken hearted. Her boyfriend of many years had left her. We washed dishes after a group dinner next to each other, and she shared this lesson:
Be kind to each other. Treat each other as special, even when habituated.
Do chores together — like washing dishes — so you can talk together about things you’ve noticed.
She seemed optimistic in the face of feeling very sad. She had broken up with the man before, and they’d gotten back together, but she said that things had gotten “gross.” I took that to mean that that the dirty dishes were stacking up, or they were not treating each other with the full respect they’d shown initially.
I feel grateful to have this word of warning about the importance of working to maintain respect and freshness in relationships.
I’m amazed by the importance of washing dishes for a harmonious household. I can’t believe I just wrote that. It sounds like something a 50s housewife would say with a fixed smile. I suppose what I mean is this: sharing dishwashing can help establish an equitable household.
A fellow teacher shared a study about the benefits of mindful dishwashing on lowering stress. I found the full passage by looking up the study online. By reading the passage before washing dishes, participants experienced positive, stress-reducing effects. The control group, given only a description of how to wash dishes, did not see the gains of the group who read the passage. Get out your sponges and scrubbies, and glimpse “the miracle of life while standing at the sink.” But first, here’s the magic passage:
While washing the dishes one should only be washingthe dishes. This means that while washing the dishesone should be completely aware of the fact that one iswashing the dishes. At first glance, that might seem alittle silly. Why put so much stress on a simple thing?But that’s precisely the point. The fact that I am standingthere and washing is a wondrous reality. I’m beingcompletely myself, following my breath, conscious ofmy presence, and conscious of my thoughts and actions.There’s no way I can be tossed around mindlessly like abottle slapped here and there on the waves.If while washing dishes, we think only of what wewould rather do, hurrying to finish the dishes as if theywere a nuisance, then we are not “washing the dishes towash the dishes.” What’s more, we are not alive duringthe time we are washing the dishes. In fact we arecompletely incapable of realizing the miracle of lifewhile standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes,the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either.While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinkingof other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands.Thus we are sucked away into the future — and we areincapable of actually living one minute of life.