Gratitude day 4: The humbling power of soap
Updated April 21, 2020
Maybe I should have numbered these entries as “post” numbers rather than days; two-plus weeks in, I’m certainly not writing as often as I expected to. Partly, that stems from something I can publicly express thanks for — for chances or needs to write other things — and partly it owes to some unexpectedly personal thanks. After all those years of writing candidly about my love life, I seem to have developed more reserve. But that leads into the point of this post.
“Day” 4: Saturday, April 11
1. Increased gratitude. Whether or not I’ve posted them here, I’ve been more aware of thankfulness recently — from bodily functions I’m more apt to either overlook or lament, to certain relational provision. Once you start to look around for God’s provision, I think you really start to see more of it. That’s humbling, both in what it says of my blindness, and how much I take for granted — perhaps even daring to think I’m owed it.
2. A refrigerator. Part of this week I’ve spent moving things around in the newly empty refrigerator (since my housemates are largely staying elsewhere) and to consolidate my frozen foods. Even before the available space expanded, just having refrigerated storage at all provides quite a gift compared to places I visited on the road.
Get outside the United States — or even certain parts of it — and you learn that many people either don’t want or can’t afford a way to keep food cold, thereby extending its life. Some ancient devices that use cold water might preserve food a couple days (at in the case of a New Delhi widow I interviewed), but days-long survival, much less the weeks and months a freezer provides, don’t exist for many people around the world.
At first, I thought that a matter of economics. But some of those I asked about it chose to invest in other priorities. For many a fridge also stood at odds with their preference for fresh food, something all cafes and restaurants would agree with.
But I’m sobered, now, to realize the privilege a fridge provides, in allowing me to store food so long that I can hopefully go weeks between grocery trips, thereby reducing my risk of exposure. As with so many things in life, there’s nothing that makes me more deserving of this than who’d want but can’t afford such devices. All I can do is try to be as grateful as I know — and steward this gift well, whether that means reducing how much food I waste, or sharing from what I have with others.
3. French soap. This, too, might sound snooty, but I recently dug further in to my embarrassment of a soap stash. Over the years, I’d stockpiled certain toiletries to the point I once filled most of a small drawer with all my bar soaps. But I rarely ended up using it, giving a lot away as Christmas gifts when I had nothing else to offer.
With a now-uncertain income, however, I seized on the last of that soap cache as a way to forestall some purchases. Little could I have imagined then how often I’d wash my hands this March and April! Thus, I recently used up the wonderfully fragrant bar an aunt gave me for Christmas, replacing it with soap I bought in France, a few Christmases back.
I suspect the fragrance has dimmed some in the … three? Four? … years since that visit, but I’m grateful as much for the luxury as the happy memories it conjures. A worry-free side trip across central Europe, a lovely reunion with dear friends from days in college (a couple who served as surrogate parents). A leisurely ramble around the streets of Strasbourg, and then through its Christmas market.
I spotted the soap cart early on, but couldn’t quite bring myself to buy it. Then, as we were close to leaving the market, I had second thoughts. My brother and his family graciously waited to let me go back for the four-soap deal.
Now, more than three years later, the soap may not be at its best, but it still lathers well, and — more importantly — spurs a deeper gratitude for it than I would have had before this pandemic. Which brings me to the next thing.
4. How freely I traveled during my 30s. It took me a decade past the end of grad school to finally get out of debt — much of even my student loans used to pay off the credit card bills I racked up throughout college. Those habits took far longer than I wanted to change, but once they finally did, I had learned to live sufficiently beneath my means that I could finally save a bit.
Around the same time, I reached a milestone at my previous job that increased annual vacation time, and had a mix of friends and relatives move overseas. Thus, with increasing frequency, I could travel abroad at least once a year in my late 30s. Most luxurious of all, compared to my earliest international travels in college, I could travel without any guilt at the cost of a trip. Even if I splurged on things like fabric or soaps, I knew I was making enough to pay off all the bills upon return, rather than over several years, as I effectively did for one spring break trip to Paris.
In this, I owe to countless factors over which I have no control — the family I was born into, with their tradition of college education (especially on my mom’s side); the relatively higher standard of living and habits thrift and saving this fostered; and my parent’s decision to move the family to Singapore, which led to early frequent-flyer miles accumulation. Put more frankly: I’ve benefited from an unequal system, even as others suffer from it.
That’s a humbling responsibility to steward well what I’ve been given. With something like a stimulus check, it’s easier to see what justice and redistribution might look like. But a legacy of travel? That’s harder. Still, with my biggest and most recent trip, I’m starting to hope those travels could offer some good good to others as well. That brings us to …
5. The timing of my singleness research. Time and again in the past few weeks, I’ve marveled that how I country hopped so freely just months past has now become unthinkable. And I marvel that God allowed all of that to happen before this global pandemic. I entered the U.S. July 31, and finished the last of my official North American stops in October. Mom and I made the harrowing drive to Alaska the following month, traversing a border now closed to most.
I don’t know why God allowed me to take the trip when I did — and finish before such major disruption — but I am so profoundly grateful that I could do all that fieldwork with as much freedom to move as I had. And I’m grateful, too, for how healthy I stayed overall (notwithstanding the worms I may still be evicting).
I don’t deserve any of this. But as I continued along the road to my 41st country, I started to see that God was showing me the global church in ways that very few people get to see. I can only assume that’s a trust I have to steward well. Hopefully this year will bring a bit more clarity around how to do that.