Washing dishes: in memory of Jim Forest and Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peacemaker, teacher of contemplation, passed on in Hue, Vietnam, January 22, 2022. 

Jim Forest, Orthodox peacemaker, writer, husband and father, fell asleep in the Lord on January 13, 2022.

I met Jim Forest any number of times, including once when he gave a lecture in Ames, Iowa. The last time I saw him was in 2006, when I was a guest of his wife Nancy and him the November before I left for Honduras. 

In the Forest kitchen in Alkmaar, Netherlands.

I heard Thich Nhat Hanh speak a number of times.

When I lived in New York City, I read a short booklet of Jim Forest which detailed an experience that he had with Nhat Hanh when he was staying with him in Paris. To me, it speaks of the spirituality they shared – and which can teach us how to live. 

I will quote from Jim’s Eyes of Compassion: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh.

An animated discussion was going on in the main room just out of earshot, but I had been given the task that evening of doing the washing up. The pots, pans, and rice bowls seemed to reach half way to the ceiling in that closet-sized kitchen. I felt really annoyed. Stuck with an infinity of dirty dishes, I was missing the main event. 

Somehow Nhat Hanh picked up on my irritation. Suddenly he was standing next to me. “Jim,” he asked, “why are you washing the dishes?” I knew I was suddenly facing one of those very tricky Zen questions. Saying it was my turn wasn't adequate. I tried to think of a good Zen answer, but all I could come up with was, “You should wash the dishes to get them clean.” “No,” said Nhat Hanh. “You should wash the dishes to wash the dishes.” I've been mulling over that answer ever since—more than four decades of mulling. I'm still in the dark. But what he said next was instantly helpful: “You should wash each dish as if it were the baby Jesus.”

I often enjoyed washing dishes. 

I remember Christmas time meals at the home of Uncle Ed and Aunt Bernie, when I was in college. After the meal, I took over the kitchen sink and washed all the dishes.

Living in New York City for grad school in the early 1970s, washing dishes was a way to get warm in cold apartments.

Later when my parents and I went for a meal after Christmas with Uncle George, Aunt Mary, and my cousins, I remember washing dishes with my cousin Mary.

When I lived in Ames, I loved to send people home after a big meal I had prepared. I turned up the music and washed the dishes.

I’m not as enamored of washing dishes these days – no hot water and sometimes no water. But there are still times when it is a joy to wash the dishes. 

Therefore, this story of Nhat Hanh and Jim opens me up to the mystery of Life – being present to every moment and recognizing that when we wash dishes it’s as if we are bathing the baby Jesus and we should wash them with the same love and tenderness.

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I also wrote about this here and here. 

Jim Forest wrote a response to the blog note, recalling Dorothy Day. 

A quote from Dorothy Day that rings the same bells: “Paper work, cleaning the house, cooking the meals, dealing with the innumerable visitors who come all through the day, answering the phone, keeping patience and acting intelligently, which is to find some meaning in all these encounters—these things too are the work of peace, and often seem like a very little way.”