ya know, I’ve tried that a couple o’times…works okay…when ya can reach 'em 
Ever tried one of them brushes with a long handle on it?
I remember seeing a female comedian who wisely pronounced, “When you find yourself using a rag on the end of a stick to bathe with, you’re overweight.”
djm
I like:
“You know you are too fat when you sit down in the tub and the water level in your toilet rises.”
I had my foot-washing experienes years ago when I spent a summer with a Church of the Brethren peace camp. Forty years later and hopefully a little wiser, I am no longer a believer in using communal containers for drinking or washing feet because of the health concerns already mentioned.
Changing the subject somewhat, we have been having too much rain here in Indiana and all across the midwest. I just read a news report where “retired truck driver, George Slayton, 65, said he just wasn’t sure how much water from the Black River flowed into his home in Piedmont, MO. He only had time to grap some medicine and a change of clothes. ‘I believe in God and everything, but He does things sometimes that make you wonder’, said Slayton who found shelter at a church sleeping on a padded pew.” I’m afraid that I would have to agree with George in that there are a lot of events that make we wonder too.
We strip the altar as well. Remove the paraments and wall hangings. The only left is the processional cross drapped over with a piece of burlap cloth and a crown of thorns. The service ends in silence and semi-darkness. People leave when they want.
Tomorrow we hold our first Stations of the Cross at the prayer labyrinth that we constructed last month out in the backyard of the church.
Oh, and I hug or handshake like 130 people every Sunday and the germs must just fall off of me 
pastorkeith
I worry about the diseases at those pedicure shops and now this, too.
Do you put something in the water to prevent the spread of athlete’s foot and toenail fungus and plantar warts?
Ain’t NO one gonna wash MY feet. Nossir. I’m so ticklish my reflexes’d snap to and I’d kick the basin over and the washer had better have a care if there’s to be no bodily damage delivered into the bargain. No telling how that’d turn out at all. It would utterly undo the solemnity of the moment.
I’ll just politely sit in the peanut gallery and watch, thanks.
Never had someone kick over a basin - that would be interesting - Hey Nano, sure you don’t want to give it a try?
pastorkeith
Get thee behind me, pastorkeith.
When we’ve had these services, I experience them on 3 levels simultaneously.
One is, I try to imagine what the historical situation might have been like. Weird to think about a culture where there were servants who would wash off your feet when you came into the house! I imagine the beat-up sandals, the smell of sweat and dust, how dirty the roads probably were. Here’s Jesus telling his disciples that now he’s going to wash their feet. Must have been a real WTF moment for them 
On another level I’m paying attention to, has it come around to my turn in the circle yet? OK, time to hold out my feet…I bet the person washing my feet feels self-conscious… I feel self-conscious doing this…smile, trade places, now I’m the one doing the washing…geez this is awkward…
And on the third level I’m thinking about how this awkwardness comes up over and over again, whenever people try to do helpful things for each other. A friend had a medical test done that might mean cancer-- should I call to see if she’s gotten news? Or is it better to wait for her to call me? She might want some time to process the information. “I don’t want to intrude…”
And, turning the tables, it often feels awkward to receive help too.
It’s humbling, being on the giving or the receiving end.
And that would symbolize…uh, let me see…the inadvertent comedy that comes from the interactions between…um… 
We’ll put a bit of anti-bacterial soap in for what that’s worth and ask people who have concers about their feet to consider the basin that we will set aside for handwashing. Yes, someone else will wash your hands, so barriers are still broken and awkward lines crossed.
Now, we do not know where people’s hands have been…but since folks share the peace with like a dozen others, hand germs get spread around pretty regularly.
pastorkeith
My granddaddy’s Old Baptist church use to do foot washings on occasion but I’ve never been to one. I’d be too ticklish to even think about that.
Our priest’s other church has a seder on Maundy Thursday. A friend and I meant to go but it is an hour’s drive one way and I just can’t make myself get back in the car after being in it all day.
Tomorrow night, our church will host a combined Good Friday service for us, Episcopal, the local Roman Catholic church and this year, for the first time, the Methodists will join us. This is such a different service. Since there is to be no music for the processional and recessional, I’ve always played my tenor drum for these, a rather dramatic effect I’m told, and our altar is stripped except for the altar cross which is covered in black. It is a very startling change. Playing the Stabat Mater works for the Veneration of the Cross-for myself, cause I love it and the Catholics, ‘cause they love it and don’t get to do it much anymore-but the Methodist will just have to wing it on this one I guess. The priest insists on “Were you there” for the sermon hymn, otherwise I’d have done "He never said a mumblin’ word" . “Oh Sacred Head” has been overdone to the point I don’t like it anymore and always try to find a substitute. This service is always very awkward for me because there is such little music. I need to be practicing.
For Good Friday, our church is doing a musical Passion. Tom was supposed to sing at it (our church is really despirate for low voices!) but he’s been sick with the cold/flu crud all week and can’t talk without coughing, so no singing.
Another “tradition” here in Cincinnati on Good Friday is to pray the steps. There is a long flight of stair that lead up the side of one of our “hills” that goes along the route that an old incline went. The steps end at the Church of the Immaculata. People pray silently at ever step (Catholics say the rosary) - I think it’s close to 300 if you do the entire length. People start at midnight tonight and continue until after sun down tomorrow.
This thread touches on two of America’s three favorite pastimes, religion and the fear of germs. All we need now is pro wrestling.
Here we are trying to have a serious discussion of footwashing, and Bloomfield steps in with his arch sense of humor.
Edited to be less subtle, I hate to see good puns go to waste 
Smackdown!!!
Well a few opted for the handwashing, but most went for the feet.
It was nice to offer a choice so that everyone who wanted to could participate. Tomorrow it is stations of the cross at the prayer labyrinth, three hours of quiet/music time (packing the whistle 
) inside, then tenebrae in the evening
pastorkeith
This was my first MT at an Episcopal church. They did the foot washing thing
(thanks to this thread, I wasn’t totally surprised by it), and they stripped the
alter at the end. Then one of the priests came back with an empty chalice,
and laid it on its side on top of the alter. It was pretty neat, I thought.
Oh, for goodness’ sake! I saw it! I just had to finish a school thing first.
Well, I suppose it’s good to keep us on our toes. You’ll have us hoofing right smartly to answer you.