With a basket of freshness sitting beside the window box, wooden clothespin tucked between my teeth, this is communing time. These are clothesline prayers. Stringing the laundry out to dry in the sun, I slip my prayers like beads onto the line. To be warmed in the light of the Son.
-Ann Voskamp in “Clothes Line Prayers” on aholyexperience.com

How do I find the time to hang out all that laundry? I make the time, out of sheer necessity. And not just the necessity of getting the clothes dry…
Hanging out the laundry, taking it down, folding the clothes big and small—it’s a few moments of quiet reflection, a few seconds of mental rest. So these days, I don’t find the time to hang out the laundry—I make the time to hang out the laundry.
–from “hanging out the laundry” on gretchenlouise.com

It seems like laundry day always falls on a day full of so many other to-do’s. And the toys are a mess and the dishes need doing but if the laundry doesn’t get hung out in the morning it won’t be dry by dark on these short autumn days.

But isn’t it when we’re dirtiest that we’re most in need of washing?

So I put an empty laundry basket in front of the washing machine and let my little guy pull all the clothes in and out a few times before I check for any stray socks stuck inside and we all make a run for the door.

Let the little children come…

He dumps the basket of clothespins before I’ve even begun to hang them up and the girls tire of hanging their little socks and washcloths before their own low-hanging rack of clothespins is full.

Become like little children…

The clouds appear from nowhere and the wind threatens to blow all my laundry away.  But I can’t help but laugh at the little ones and the wind in my hair calms my stressed state of mind.

His power directs the wind…

And no matter where in the day my date with the clothesline falls, washing the clothes becomes a way of washing my day bright and new again.

Just like He washes us whiter than snow…

There’s something about hanging out the laundry that makes it all right in my world once again.
-from “something about hanging out the laundry” on gretchenlouise.com

There was the laundry on the line and there was the wind and there was the clipping of each pin to the line, and it was like a staking… I’m pinning towels to the line, trying to mark out a life.
-Ann Voskamp in ”How to Make Sure Your Kids {& You} have the Best Job in the World” on aholyexperience.com

Queen of my tub, I merrily sing
While the white foam rises high,
And sturdily wash and rinse and wring,
And fasten the clothes to dry.
Then out in the free fresh air they swing,
Under the sunny sky.
I wish we could wash from our hearts and souls
The stains of the week away,
And let water and air by their magic make
Ourselves as pure as they.
Then on the earth there would be indeed,
A glorious washing day!
-from Jo’s “A Song from the Suds” in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women