16 Sep
Book Club: The Dirt on Clean
This is the discussion thread for The Dirt on Clean. Comment below to join the conversation, no need to “sign up” as part of the book club to do so. If you comment on this post, you are part of the book club!
According to Ashenburg (The Mourner’s Dance), the Western notion of cleanliness is a complex cultural creation that is constantly evolving, from Homer’s well-washed Odysseus, who bathes before and after each of his colorful journeys, to Shaw’s Eliza Doolittle, who screams in terror during her first hot bath. The ancient Romans considered cleanliness a social virtue, and Jews practiced ritual purity laws involving immersion in water. Abandoning Jewish practice, early Christians viewed bathing as a form of hedonism; they embraced saints like Godric, who, to mortify the flesh, walked from England to Jerusalem without washing or changing his clothes. Yet the Crusaders imported communal Turkish baths to medieval Europe. From the 14th to 18th centuries, kings and peasants shunned water because they thought it spread bubonic plague, and Louis XIV cleaned up by donning a fresh linen shirt. Americans, writes Ashenburg, were as filthy as their European cousins before the Civil War, but the Union’s success in controlling disease through hygiene convinced its citizens that cleanliness was progressive and patriotic. Brimming with lively anecdotes, this well-researched, smartly paced and endearing history of Western cleanliness holds a welcome mirror up to our intimate selves, revealing deep-seated desires and fears spanning 2000-plus years. 82 b&w illus. (Nov. 15)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. -This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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I'm a farm-raised almost-crunchy stroller-pushing picture-taking lifestyle-blog-writing gastronomy-obsessed divine-seeking thrift-store-combing cheese-inhaling pavement-pounding laughter-sprinkling lover of individuality and taking chances.
Joining the library and getting this book tonight!
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1Count me in! Downloading on my iPad after work!
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2Yeah! I’m so excited for this!
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3Cool!
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4Just requested this book from the library.
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5Yay!!!
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6I’m in! Needed to go to the library anyway!
(also need to see what exactly I signed up for with this book club…oops)
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7So I just looked up this book at my library system and they don’t have it.
It sounded interesting, but I am not sure I want to buy it. I might just read the comments this month and wait for the next book.
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8I’ll have to make sure my library has it, I’m on a self imposed “do not buy any more books” directive
I’ve read lots of good reviews on this book and read several excerpts so I if I can check it out I’m in!
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9I’m picking it up my library today! I reserved it a few days ago, with the hopes that one of the other top three contenders for this months book wouldn’t beat it out!
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10Well my library didn’t have it either, but I found it used online for 99 cents (+ a couple bucks shipping, but still a cheap total). I just hope it gets here reasonably quickly! I’m gonna read it to my husband (is it weird that I read to him?)
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Erin Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
I read to mine too! I don’t think it’s weird. I love getting read to as well. Auditory learner here.
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I have it on my book shelf & can’t wait to start it!
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12I’am in!… hope the book gets here in time. I’am excited this is my first book club!! Thanks Jenna.
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13So, has anyone started the book yet?
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14Just got the book today in the mail…going to start tonight.
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Jenna Reply:
September 30th, 2010 at 10:55 am
I’m picking it up from the library today! So glad it came in before I left for Europe. I’ll have to take notes on my phone per the things I want to talk about here.
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I’ve been reading this on my bus rides to and from school. What I have read so far has been pretty sexy. I’m thinking that when I get my own house I’m gonna build a “bath room” for me and my homies so that we can sit around naked, talk philosophy and politics, wipe sweat off of each other and compliment each others bodies.
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Allison Reply:
September 30th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
hahaha. Don’t forget to get oiled up and then go do sports naked.
(Just for anyone who hasn’t read that far yet, this is a reference to the book).
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I ordered the book last night…it cost .99 used plus a couple bucks for shipping from amazon.com.
I can’t wait to start it.
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17I’ve been brainstorming questions while I read! I’ll post them as I go:
The author (aptly) points out that we as Americans love to try smell like either an exotic fruit or a dessert. Is this the same in other countries as well? What is your smell of choice? Exotic fruit or dessert?
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Carolyn Reply:
October 10th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
That part really struck home for me, as I was just talking about what cleanliness means to different people with a friend. If I would have read this before I talked to him, I would have made a comment about why do people need to smell like a fruit or dessert. (He thinks it’s disgusting if you don’t shower every single day).
I’ve always been pretty sensitive to smells (I hated going into Bath & Body Works when I was in high school), but if I do end up going with something scented, it tends to be citrusy or lineny (‘clean’?) smelling.
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Allison Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 11:22 am
I would chose dessert, but my husband likes the smell of exotic fruit!
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MrsW Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Hmm… if ONLY between those two, I’d say exotic fruit, specifically coconut. Usually I like more non-typical scents, though (my favorite was the Breathe:Calm line by B&BW a few years back).
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Erin Reply:
October 12th, 2010 at 1:19 am
One of my favourite perfumes is Wild Fig & Cassis by Jo Malone. To me it smells like wet dirt…and apparently that’s a good thing to me.
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Rachel Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 9:59 am
I don’t like to smell like exotic fruit or dessert. I prefer clean smelling scents like ocean, cotton, linen, and maybe a little sweet scents here and there. Okay, so I guess I’m a dessert person. But more florals, really.
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Maranda Lamping Reply:
October 14th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Depends on the season… if its spring/summer, I would rather smell like an exotic fruit. Feels fresher, cleaner, lighter than dessert smells. But during fall/winter, I’m all for vanilla, sugar cookie, and other sweet, heavier scents!
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The author found that writing this book caused her friends to start confessing their “dirty” secrets to her. Would anyone like to confess one of theirs?
Mine is that I hardly ever wear deodorant.
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Sarah for Real Reply:
October 4th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
I’m really lax about shaving my legs. Oh and I almost never wash my feet. I think the soapy water that rinses down is enough.
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Erin Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 1:54 am
I pretty much never shave my legs either…but I wasn’t always like that…they’ve just gotten super sensitive and shaving (or any other means of hair removal I’ve tried) make my legs crazy itchy.
Actually, I guess growing up I was like that for half the year. I grew up in the north, so pretty much no one I knew bothered shaving their legs for the half of the year where they knew they’d be wearing pants the whole time.
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allison Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
I think it’s perfectly acceptable to go a day without bathing. I know some would consider that “dirty,” but seriously, how dirty do I get in my usual day-to-day activities? Most of the time showering feels like a hassle to me.
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Sarah for Real Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Some days I only feel the need to bathe because my hair looks greasy, not because I feel stinky or gross otherwise.
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Erin Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
That’s pretty much what determines my bathing schedule…of course that puts it at every other day max…it would take much longer if I was just waiting to feel stinky.
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Carolyn Reply:
October 10th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
I feel the same way about showering, and tend to not shower on Sundays (I have to get up early to take my grandparents to church and try to wait until the absolute last second to get up).
To me it kind of depends on what you do during the day and what kind of hair you have. If I work out or are doing chores, I just don’t want to go to bed feeling dirty. Additionally, I have pretty fine hair, while me sister has really thick, curly hair. My hair looks oily if I don’t shampoo it every day. Her hair gets really dry if she does shampoo every day.
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Brandi Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
I’m really lax about shaving my legs too (having blond hair helps that habit), and I also only scrub my feet if they’re really dirty. If they “look” clean, the soapy water is good enough for me.
I also never floss. Ever. I just hate it.
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Stephanie @ Confessions of a Trophy Wife Reply:
October 9th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
I agree with the not washing feet thing. I do that too. Also, I’m down to about 2 showers a week since I had my son (7 months). I don’t smell though. ::sniff sniff:: at least I don’t think so
P.S. I say rock on with the no deoderant thing. I seem to sweat a lot even when I slather it on so I’m intrigued by those that can comfortably go without. I guess we’re all different!
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MrsW Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
So I’ve never considered this a dirty secret but apparently some people find it shocking…
I bathe every three days or so. I used to do a quick above the waist wash every morning, but shared bathrooms in college took that out of me. I do wear anti-perspirent almost religiously, however, and if I ever listen to the voice in the back of my head that tells me I need to look into the health hazards of AP, I may need to start showering more.
I also will go a darn long time without shaving my legs in the winter. I do it more now that I’m married, though.
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MrsW Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Didn’t want to do a super long comment, but… no washing the feet? I don’t know how to say that without sounding judgy, because it really doesn’t mean a thing to me if other people don’t wash their feet in the shower, but I’m the kind of person that scrubs and scrubs their feet every shower and I’ll sometimes grab a baby wipe for a quick scrub down as I’m getting into bed at night. But I also walk barefoot around the house all day and my in-laws’ dogs bring in all sorts of dirt constantly.
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Rachel Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 10:00 am
I don’t shower every day. And I rarely floss.
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Allison Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 11:07 am
I am awful at shaving my legs. I probably shave once a month!
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Sophia Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
I have gone up to 5 days without a shower, when living in Japan during the winter. I seriously didn’t sweat for like, 6 months it was so cold and dry, and I spent 99% of my time indoors, so why bother? I wore clean clothes every day, brushed teeth/washed face/put on deodorant, so I was perfectly clean. And, when I did bathe, I did so at the public bath- onsen- and spent like, 3 hours there. Totally made up for it
Even now I probably shower every other day, and in the cold months it can be more like once every 3 days.
I also wash my hair a maximum of three times a week, usually twice. Oh, and I haven’t owned a hairbrush since I was 16- more than a decade of not brushing my hair.
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Erin Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
I’ve gone 3 weeks…once. I was living in Nepal and while I was there I typically got to bathe once a week. The last month I was there though was in the middle of winter. I was living and working with a family where we were gone and the house was locked up from dawn to dark, so you could only bathe really early in the morning before the sun was up or later in the evening after the sun was down.
The last shower I had was on a holiday when I was able to bathe at the hottest (hot being completely relative) point of the day…the water was so cold that my head went completely numb in about 30 seconds. After that I couldn’t imagine bathing when it was cold out (also relative) and decided I wasn’t doing it again until I was either some place warmer or some place that had heated water. That took 3 weeks…and a plane trip to another country…
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Maranda Lamping Reply:
October 14th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Man… is it bad if you can relate to SEVERAL of these confessions?! I am totally with you with the non-feet washing. During the summer, when I’m in flip flops and barefoot a lot, I wash my feet more often than in the winter when I’m constantly in socks. And I hardly floss. (But don’t tell my dentist!)
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Brigid Reply:
October 17th, 2010 at 11:24 am
I don’t wear deodorant either! I couldn’t stand to use all the chemicals, so I use baking soda instead. I actually love it. There’s no weird “ocean/rain/baby powder” smell, and it doesn’t stain my clothes.
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In Rome, the nudity in the bath house was an equalizer among rich and poor. Often the poor had bodies that the rich envied due to their lifestyle. Is there an activity or thing in American culture (or your own culture if you live abroad) that reverses the social structure that way?
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Sarah for Real Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 12:01 am
Tax season?
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MrsW Reply:
October 12th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
This isn’t an activity (in a manner of speaking…) but I’ll throw it out there anyway:
Fertility — in our culture, well-to-do infertile couples will spend tens of thousands on fertility treatments and bemoan the fact that there’s a mom down at the welfare office getting aid for her fourth or fifth kid.
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Katie Reply:
October 14th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Ooo! Good one!
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If I may, I’d like to discuss the origins of soap. I’ve always known that “soap” was originally just oil based. The chemicals we use now can be so harsh, creating the need for lotion.
I’ve tried using a simple olive oil bar soap before. (My dog thought it smelled delicious.) I found the residue that it left on my skin and tub to be undesirable. But maybe it’s just that our culture has trained me to believe my skin should feel “squeaky clean” after I wash.
I’m also curious about folks who’ve tried the method of cleaning that involves just scraping your skin with stones.
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Andrea Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 7:51 am
We don’t use stones, but we do use loofah brushes and body brushes. I feel like my skin is more alive and invigorated after using the body brush.
I also use an all-vegetable base soap that I love but I typically shower so I don’t notice a residue in the shower. I like the lack of “squeak” to my skin when I use this soap.
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Erin Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
I’ve never tried scraping with stones…but after my 3 weeks of no bathing (mentioned earlier), the dirt was such a part of me that soap and a wash cloth wasn’t cutting it…I had to scrape the dirt off with my nails.
Recently I’ve been using an oil cleanser on my face and love it! Whenever I use anything else now my face feels so dry it hurts. I can also visibly see a difference in the texture of my skin when I use the oil vs regular cleansers.
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I agree with carolyn about citrus scents. And, my husband has sensitive skin, so we use unscented laundry detergent, and I just started using his unscented body wash bc it’s easier to get one kind, and I have to admit, I don’t miss all the artificial scents, and I can still tell my clothes are clean.
I don’t really feel awake until I shower though, so I pretty much do it every morning. (And I’m a sweaty sleeper
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22In the sevetheeth century men and women exposed their chemise to prove that they met a certain standard of cleanliness. Are there ways that we “prove” we are clean in modern day society?
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Andrea Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 8:11 am
Other than smelling like “Ocean Breeze” or “Sea Island Cotton” or cucumber, etc? I think today we don’t think of all these scents as covering up body odor as attesting to our cleanliness. Do all of those Bath and Body customers go in to cover their natural aroma or do they go in to smell “good” and implicitly clean?
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Sarah for Real Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
I think it’s interesting that you say we use fragrances to show that we are clean. It is my opinion that if someone slathers themselves with fragrance on a daily basis, they are covering up body odors of some kind.
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Andrea Reply:
October 12th, 2010 at 8:59 am
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Charmaine Reply:
October 14th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
haha… my little sister was getting ready for a date just last night and I caught her dousing herself in perfume. I told her that if I were her date, I’d wonder what horrible smell she was covering up. Yeah, not the best big sister move.
My husband has REALLY sensitive sinuses. He can’t blow out candles without being bothered by the smoke. It really annoys me (I know it’s something he can’t help, but seriously - candles) … and as a result, I very rarely wear anything scented.
But back to the question - I think impossibly (unnaturally) white teeth is an example of how we try to prove our cleanliness. I admit to being bleachorexic in college… I’d have trays in my mouth while doing my homework, it was so addictive. My friends would comment about my blindingly white teeth and I would deny deny deny that I had bleached them.
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MrsW Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
I think hair cleanliness is a big deal, at least to me. My body can be clean and my hair look greasy or frizzy and I feel awful and dirty.
I remember as a child thinking that because of African hair’s greater need for natural oils that black people’s hair was “dirty” all the time. Then as I grew to understand more, I shifted to thinking that dreadlocks were dirty, and now I’ve been told many times that they’re actually very clean. I think it’s fascinating how different hair types and needs take all sorts of different levels of washing or product to maintain cleanliness and an attractive appearance.
Can you tell I’m OCD about my hair?
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Monique Reply:
October 15th, 2010 at 11:25 am
You make a great point. I am mixed race and I shower my hair once a week, on average. If I’m engaged in a lot of sweaty activity (very rare) I’ll do it every 4 or 5 days. Any more than that and it is gross and stringy. I have gone up to 3 weeks without washing after I got it professionally straightened and no one could tell - not even my husband. It will still look shiny and (by most people’s standard) healthy. I know the difference, of course, but no one else does. And given the fact that washing my hair takes 2-3 hours, I’d just as soon put it off sometimes.
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Erin Reply:
October 15th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
2-3 hours??? Ugh…I often put off washing my hair to every other day (can NOT go loner than that without it turning greasy) because the 5 min it takes to wash mine seems like too much of an inconvenience (particularly when I’m sleepy and don’t want to get up yet). I’d die if it took 2-3 hours.
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Maranda Lamping Reply:
October 14th, 2010 at 11:36 am
I agree with the fragrance idea… I think we as a society feel that if we smell like some pleasant fragrance, people will assume we are clean.
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How much money would someone have to pay you before you would agree to use a loveseat style double bidet?
I can’t even imagine using such a thing! I don’t even like That Husband to see me using the toilet.
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Brandi Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
There is no way. Once, when visiting Washington DC a few years ago, I walked into a restroom with several toilets not in stalls. And women were using them. I waited patiently for a stall to open.
I’m amazed that men can use urinals in front of each other. No, thank you.
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MrsW Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Eww, yeah, I’ve experienced that no stall or very little stall phenomena before… weirds me out.
I’m not sure about the bidet.. I shower with my husband and I (used to) go to the bathroom in front of him (when we lived on our own our bathroom door would lock you in so we just never shut it unless we had guests). I think my biggest worry would be splashback cross-contamination.
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Maranda Lamping Reply:
October 14th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Oh that’s a hard one… I’m sure almost everyone has their price, but the thought of it just grosses me out!!
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Charmaine Reply:
October 14th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Jenna - I googled “loveseat style double bidet” and I don’t know what you’re referring to? I can’t remember how it was described in the book… but regular ol’ bidets?
I personally would PAY to use a bidet on a regular basis - i.e. have one installed in my home if I had the space. I just came back from Argentina where they are standard fixtures in most private homes/apts. They take getting used to (the one I used in my apt had a temperamental knob and would be sputtering one second, then shooting 5 feet high - not exaggerating - less than a quarter of a turn later). I love bidets and find them to be really refreshing.
And if I misunderstood the question to mean being visible while using public bathrooms (? getting that idea from the responses) I also wouldn’t have to be paid… I’ve had to voluntarily do my business (all numbers) in public view while traveling (mostly through remote parts of Asia). If everyone else is doing it, it’s not too bad.
oh and if a loveseat style bidet is a way to go to the bathroom w/ your partner, i think it would elicit more giggles than embarrassment!
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One of the quotes in the margin of the book is:
“Are you a bath person or a shower person? It is impossible to exaggerage the character-revealing difference between the two.”
Which are you?
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Andrea Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 8:00 am
I guess I’m a shower person since I shower far more than I take a bath. To me, baths are for relaxation and resting, while showers are for getting clean. I lived in Japan for a time and visiting the public bath/hot springs, one would sit on a stool for a low shower to clean the body before getting into the tub/pool of very hot water. Then sit as long as you like (or can take the heat). I really enjoyed it to be honest but I think that helped cement my idea of bath as relaxation and shower as cleaning.
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Sarah for Real Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
I agree. I’m a shower person to get clean and a bath person for relaxing. Though I always feel the need to scour the tub before I take a bath though, which is not very relaxing.
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Erin Reply:
October 12th, 2010 at 1:25 am
I’m also a shower for clean, bath for relaxation gal. Being in a nice warm body of water makes me too lazy to bother with cleaning myself.
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Sophia Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
I loved the public baths when I lived in Japan too! I always felt dirty in a bath, sitting in the water full of my “dirt”, but scrubbing down really well in the showers at the onsen made the bath feel so much more relaxing. I so wish we had them here…
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MrsW Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
I think shower with aspirations to bath. If it’s a really good bathtub, I can enjoy it, but a little cramped one that’s usually kind of gross (aka, the one in my house) is not really conducive to relaxation. I find if I really need to relax, I turn up the temperature and pressure on the showerhead and then kneel/curl up into a ball on the shower floor. Ahhh…
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Rachel Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Shower person for sure. Baths to me feel like I’m marinating in dirty water. Gross! Or I have to shower, take a bath, and shower again. Too much work and too wasteful of water!
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Allison Reply:
October 13th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Totally a shower person. I only take baths when I have the flu, and then it isn’t about getting clean, it’s about getting warm!
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Maranda Lamping Reply:
October 14th, 2010 at 11:39 am
I still feel dirty after I take a bath. Most of the time, I’ll drain the water out after I’m done, and then take a quick shower to “rinse off”. Baths are relaxing, and I do take them often, but not for cleanliness. I shower every morning, and baths just seem to take longer.
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Katie Reply:
October 14th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Interesting question! But I don’t know which I am…I like both! I shower on a day to day basis, mostly out of convenience I guess but I do like a relaxing bath once in awhile…what’s that say about me?
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Carolyn Reply:
October 16th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
definitely a shower person, just because it is over faster. I’m not a luxuriate in the bath kind of person. Don’t really know why.
We just redid our apartment, taking the bathtub out of the bathroom and replacing it with just a (gorgeous) shower. It completely baffled my mother-in-law, because she is a die-hard bath person.
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Laura Elizabeth Reply:
October 17th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
I’m definitely a shower person. I don’t understand how people feel clean after a bath. But they can be relaxing…on the few rare occasions that I’ve taken the time for one!
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I thought this was a great choice for our first book! I found it to be very informative but an easy read. Best of all, I think it changed some of my perceptions for the better, which is one of my criteria for a good book.
At the wedding I had some time to test out my new ideas of what it means to be clean and smelly and I was happy to find that I was a bit less judgemental when I encountered people who were smelling and smelled of body odor (they had been dancing for hours and hours after all!). We are constnatly bombarded with ads that tell us we need to make sure we smell like fruit or cookies that it was nice to take a step back and remind myself that it’s okay to smell like a human being. Will I stop wearing deodorant and covering myself with smelly lotions now? No, but I’ll be a lot more tolerant of those who do.
My favorite section? The part that talked about the hygiene hypothesis! I learned about the HH back when I was pregnant (http://www.radiolab.org/2009/sep/07/sculptors-of-monumental-narrative/) and it’s played a big part in helping me develop my parenting style. Now I want to get T1 a cat, hurry and make him some siblings, and send him out to live on the farm with my parents!
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Andrea Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 7:48 am
I’ve enjoyed the book too and learned a lot. One more chapter to go. Kinda wish it were longer and a bit more detailed…
While I was pregnant, I read Slow Death by Rubber Duck. It’s basically eliminated my use of “smelly lotions” due to what’s in those lotions that smell like so many artificial things (I do miss my Warm Vanilla Sugar lotion sometimes). No more artificial fragrance in our home. We switched to rock salt deodorant years ago. I’m still keenly aware of my own aroma but I smell like me. My child knows my smell and finds it comforting and there is nothing wrong with that.
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MrsW Reply:
October 16th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
After you posted this, I went and got Slow Death by Rubber Duck from the library. I just read the introduction and I’m really liking it already. Although I don’t know how my husband will react when he sees the subtitle… he’s always complaining that every day I’m telling him a new thing that causes cancer.
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Andrea Reply:
October 18th, 2010 at 7:19 am
giggle… I really hope you like it. I found it very thought-provoking. It drove other changes in our home as well, which thankfully my husband fully supported. I’m not a doctor but I wonder if there might be correlations to MS and other non-cancers. In any case, the changes were generally not life altering.
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I’m wondering if any other Christians were wincing through the “Bathed in Christ” chapter? I don’t doubt that there were folks in church history that acted the way the author describes, but I think it’s sad that it wasn’t within the scope of the book to go into how some Christian’s over-emphasis on the spiritual to the neglect of the physical was influenced more by Gnostic teachings than by true religion. I hope that today most Christians are more holistic than described in this chapter.
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Andrea Reply:
October 12th, 2010 at 9:54 am
I understand your disappointment regarding the narrow scope of the book. I myself would have enjoyed a wider scope and closer examination in general. That would have made for a longer and more challenging read though, I suppose.
Would you care to clarify your distinction between “Gnostic teachings… [and] true religion”? It would seem you think are distinctly separate, so I would appreciate clarification. I would also “hope… most Christians are more holistic than described in this chapter” but am dubious. Just weeks ago at my church a flier was posted at the church exits chiding church-goers for dressing too casually. Small difference in my opinion between formality of clothing and level of holy dirtiness.
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MrsW Reply:
October 12th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
I would define the teachings of the Gnostics as a pseudo-Christianity that sprung up that was very dualistic. Spirit = good, body = bad. Some of them even had a separate God for the Old and New Testaments because they felt that the OT God was too focused on things of the body (all those cleanliness laws, for example. I would say that it wasn’t true Christianity because I think (like I think most Christians, no matter their theology would think) that when properly understood, Old Testament Judaism and New Testament Christianity should be show a progression and unfolding of new revelation, not a drastic change of dispensation. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me.
I’m not sure if you’re understanding what I meant by holistic when you cited your flier example. This is my personal opinion (and a total tangent now that I’m reading it over after the initial write-through; oh well), but I get very concerned about how I appear in church, because I think that 1. it’s a mark of respect to God and His house for me to look nice and 2. I view worship as a celebration, so I want to wear my celebrating clothes!
It seems like what you want is a lack of concern with outward appearance, and what I meant was I think Christians should be concerned with both the state of their soul and their body, which I think that the Gnostics and the filthy saints of the early church were neglecting.
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MrsW Reply:
October 12th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
PS - that’s my “super-layman/spit out in 30 seconds what I remember from a class 5 years ago about the Gnostics” summary, btw. Grain of salt.
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Andrea Reply:
October 12th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
I’m not terribly knowledgeable regarding Gnostic teaching, so I was just seeking more info.
I take care of my body because it is scripturally the “temple of God” and I am the caretaker of this temple. I also dress very nicely for church because while GOD may not care what I am wearing, I want to look my best outwardly before God - as you say - as a mark of respect. I wouldn’t meet the President in ripped jeans and a T-shirt, given the option. Why should I do any less for GOD? But I also do not think it is the place of fellow congregants to judge what is appropriate attire because I believe judgement rests with God. I do not want “a lack of concern with outward appearance” so much as a lack of judgement of others. Referencing the book, some Christians judged the clean as unholy just as some Christians (in my church anyway) today judge the casually-dressed as irreverant.
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Maybe I’m just dumb, but I’m glad to finally know why swimsuits are sometimes called bathing suits. Makes total sense now… Haha!
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28Wow, just read this on page 289 (I think I have the first edition so I don’t know if the pagination has changed…):
“The American writer Allen Salkin asks, ‘Is it only a coincidence that the same places where Americans most fear terrorism-airplanes, schools, mass transit, water supplies and computers-they also fear germs?’ Probably not, and what at least some of this overwrought avoidance of germs really demonstrates is our wish to be protected, to be safe in a world that seems increasingly unsafe.”
This really resonates with me. I’m not sure what sort of commentary I want to make on it except that I think there is a connection somehow, and that it’s a fascinating thing to realize that connection exists. Anyone else have thoughts on that?
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Andrea Reply:
October 18th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
I think germs were something to be “feared” for many decades now and terrorism is the johnnie-come-lately to the party. I find it interesting that hospitals were not listed because I think hospitals are some of the germiest places in America despite the quest for sterility in hospitals. Maybe nobody else fears hospital germs… hard to picture terrorists targeting a hospital, I guess. That’s probably a different book.
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Do any of the mommy-readers use shopping cart covers for their little ones? Is it out of fear of germs, or comfort for your little one, or (an)other (or both!) reason(s)?
I put a folded up blankie behind Baby T’s back, just because she is little and she kind of flops around in a shopping cart seat. I do try to keep her from mouthing the handle, though. Sometimes I feel guilty that I’m not protecting her more from germs, but I tell myself I’m strengthening her immune system.
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Andrea Reply:
October 18th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I admit I use a shopping cart cover but truly it’s because my mother-in-law made it and I feel obliged to use it. Plus I think it is more comfortable and cuter than nothing. We also use it for high chairs when we eat out to help contain the mess of food that misses his mouth or gets thrown. It actually gets far more use in high chairs than in grocery carts since he’s usually in the sling at the grocery store.
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Stephanie @ Confessions of a Trophy Wife Reply:
October 18th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
We use a shopping cart cover and I feel like it’s for both comfort and germ-avoidance. I am sooo far from being a clean freak, but even I feel like my hands are crawling with grossness when I get home from the grocery store. I’d rather my kid not teeth on a handle where any number of people have had their hands or where there might be remenants of raw meat juice (think picking up a leaky meat product and then putting your hands back on the cart handle to push - yuck!).
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So my question after finishing this book is where are the “clean” trends going to go in the future? Will we keep moving towards germaphobic tendencies or will there be a backlash where people return to their dirty roots?!
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