Cleanliness is...

For the past month or so, I have been very aware of how often I have been cleaning. I wash dishes (and the sink and the cutting board etc) every day. I put things away every day. I am surprised at how quickly things get dirty. Time to scrub the tub again. Again? Shower my body scrub my face brush my teeth.

Life is like a never ending cycle of soil and clean, soil and clean. Vacuum, dust, scrub, mop. Laundry. Fold. I'm not even obsessive about it. I let things go. I don't shave as often as I should (I am a graduate student after all). I sometimes wait until I can see the ring in the bowl before I scrub it. I wear clothes multiple times before I wash them. Not my unmentionables, of course. They get washed after just one wear because it's dirty down there.

I'm not complaining about life being a cycle of chores. In fact, when I motivate myself to do clean something, I often take some pleasure in it. Particularly washing dishes: the hot water, almost hurting hands, soap so powerful, and elementary shapes of plates and cups and bowls. Or the tub: I attack it with gleeful determination, big yellow rubber gloves on, sweating, imagining that I could take a toothbrush to the grout and butterknife the cracks.

Is there a lesson in these chores? In this cleaning? In the order? Does God indeed love cleanliness? Would it be the same if I had the means to pay someone to do the cleaning? It would be cleaner...

What do you clean? What do you like to clean? What do you learn from cleaning?