Eastertide
May 6, 2014

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. — 1 Peter 2:1-3 

In my book Houses Divided, I talk about the filters that all people have created within their minds to help them navigate life. Such filters are based on life experiences and gleanings that we store in our brains for future reference. So, if life has taught us that if we touch a hot stove we will burn our finger, we generally stop touching what we perceive to be hot stoves. This is a very important function of our brains giving us shortcuts to common experiences thus saving us from repeating the some process of thinking over and over again. Problems arise when an original experience or learning was incorrect or when the source of our patterning changes, and we retain the same filter we have always had.

Our scripture today is addressing the issue of the need to clean our filters. We do that by intentionally holding our perceptions up to the light of Christ to see if our filters contain the same shortcuts as His. When we have some missing, we need to add them.  Probably more likely when our filters have become clogged with out-of-date film or just wrong lint, we need to clean them.

Sometimes cleaning filters can happen just by acquiring new information. Many times, however, some filters are so incrusted with the grime of bad information or experiences that we need to turn to God for help in removing that which is blocking us from growing into salvation. We do this by practicing the spiritual disciples, particularly those of prayer, meditation, and study.

Prayer: Almighty God, help me first to see the film and lint in my filters and then scour them away. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.