Practicing My Religion
Like genuflecting before an altar, I kneel in the hot bath water, adjusting to the temperature and thinking how perfect it is. I pull the shower curtain over, like a priest opens and closes the confessional window, and the ritual begins.
But there are no words of prayer to recite or actions to take. There is no need to be good or feel remorse for being bad. There is just being and being immersed in the blessing of water. It burns off fatigue, cleans the slate, is a sacrament of simple, and a marriage of the physical senses with spirit. It’s the same every time, yet always different, the thoughts, the play of light, the circumstances of the day and the soaking up of silence.
Every night I’m born again, naked as a baby in a womb-like tub. For me, the bath is a baptism of renewal, a sanctuary for quiet contemplation, and one of the closest things I have to a church.
January 18th, 2015 4:56 am
I feel similarly. Lying in the bath or entering a woodland in the sunshine are the places I feel most at ease with the world. I feel part of the world at the same time as feeling on my own and just me.
January 18th, 2015 7:38 am
You’ve made me feel so saintly with your representation of this religious ceremony.
January 18th, 2015 8:23 am
Very nicely done. I will never take another bath without thinking about this. I have always felt it, but you put it perfectly into words.
January 18th, 2015 9:55 am
I’ve always thought of the outdoor world as my church but the this gives me an inside place to get the same. In the bath I think of the sacred wells in Ireland and never lose sight of the fact that such a precious resource flows freely out of my faucet! What a luxury. Of course, my experiences are always steeped in the Catholicism of my youth.
January 18th, 2015 2:04 pm
This reflection really speaks to me. My bath is something I hope I never have to give up. It is what I need to start the day.
January 20th, 2015 4:41 am
A hot bath is so relaxing!
January 21st, 2015 10:51 pm
[…] 12. Like genuflecting before an altar, I kneel in the hot bath water, adjusting to the temperature and thinking how perfect it is. I pull the shower curtain over, like a priest opens and closes the confessional window, and the ritual begins. – Read more about how taking a bath is part of my religion HERE. […]
January 22nd, 2015 6:54 pm
This is how I too am achieving thunderbolt posture… eep!
January 25th, 2015 1:47 am
I do miss my bath & now have to make do with a blue lagoon!