Feet and Service

While running some errands today, I decided to get a pedicure. I had an hour to kill before a meeting and walked past a nail place (conveniently located inside Wal-Mart). Looking down at my feet, which certainly needed some TLC, I decided to give it a try. I have had a pedicure before, but it has been a while (probably 2 years or so).

The woman who did my pedicure was a tiny Asian woman. I swear that my feet alone were almost as big as she was (she was really tiny, and my feet are really big).

I sat in a big massage chair with a foot-soaking tub attached. The massage part of the chair made me feel motion-sick, so I turned that off, but I could get used to that foot-soaking apparatus. I am trying to figure out a way to hook one up to my favorite chair at home.

The woman commented that I had beautiful skin, as she massaged my feet and the lower part of my legs. This, of course, seemed incredibly awkward. In any other context, it might seem like she was hitting on me, but I am pretty certain she was just making conversation. I find it incredibly amusing when people comment on my skin, which occasionally happens. I guess some people think the vampire look is attractive. When you have skin so pale that people can see your veins and organs through it, "beautiful" is not the word that comes to mind. Truly, I look like I need a blood transfusion, but I just thanked her for her kindness and did not enlighten her with the fact that I think I look like the living dead.

Sitting in that massage chair, I was pretty high up in the air, while this woman sat on a little bench at my feet. That felt extremely awkward to me, like I was up on a throne while she sat beneath me, serving me...as if I were in a superior position and she were somehow, lower. I did not like it. Couldn't my chair be a little lower and hers a little higher? It made me feel pretentious.

Generally, I think feet are disgusting (even my own). I used to clip my grandpa's toenails for him. They were thick and crooked, and it was more like sawing than cutting. I did it, though, because he could not see or reach well enough to do it himself. I did it because I loved him deeply. All the while, it turned my stomach. But I think that is the nature of sacrificial love: doing things that make you want to vomit (or are in some way unpleasant) because you love someone and it needs to be done. To me, the idea of touching peoples' feet for a living would be an unthinkable task. This woman did not seem to mind. She did her job thoroughly and well...and even gave me advice on foot care (for example, you are supposed to cut your toenails in a straight line...who knew? How I do that with the nail clippers I own is a mystery, but I will at least attempt it next time).

I know this sounds totally corny (no pun intended), but I thought about Jesus at the Last Supper as she pampered my feet today. It was difficult enough to have someone I did not know touching my feet...but to imagine it being Jesus, my Lord and Ruler, bending down to serve me. No wonder Peter put up such a fuss! It is a difficult thing to be served--to sit back and let someone lavish you with attention, with love.

I have always been amazed at the foot washing scene in the Gospels. I mean, it was Jesus' last night on earth, His last time with His disciples. This was His final chance to reinforce any message that He really wanted the disciples to get. And what does He do? He gets down on His hands and knees and washes feet...teaching them that serving others is what it is all about. For Jesus, there is nothing more important than lowering yourself and serving. Maybe sometimes, we serve others by letting them serve us. But most times, it means taking ourselves out of center place and letting someone else have the priority position and focus.

Picturing that woman at my feet today gives me a visual of how I want to live my life: bending down to take care of others, to show them what Christ is like, to take myself out of the spotlight and give, radically and fully. One of my favorite verses is from John 3:30, where John the Baptist speaks of Jesus, saying: "He must become greater, I must become less". Maybe He becomes greater as we become less in relation to others. Maybe Jesus becomes greater as we get on our knees and serve.