Good for the soul

I’ve always hated litter; in fact, I once walked out in the middle of a date because my companion threw a wrapper on the sidewalk. In my opinion, littering is the most preventable and stupid of the world’s sins, and all the more infuriating because it has no proponents. For example, though I am also against corporal punishment, there are people who would readily argue that it is a useful and necessary form of discipline. But no one ever defends littering—even the people who do it. Mark Olmsted  

Twilly Spree, a character in the Carl Hiaasen novel Sick Puppy, has anger management issues. People who litter make him really angry, and those he catches littering are punished. He gets revenge on one egregious litterer by hijacking a garbage truck and dumping its load onto the wife’s convertible (the top was down) and by filling the husband’s Range Rover with dung beetles.

I go to an aerobics class 3 times a week, and on the days when I don’t go, I walk the frontage roads near our house – weather permitting -- and pick up litter as I go. What I find is sometimes peculiar. One sock, a glove, a shoe, tools, sometimes money. Not too long ago I found a food storage bag with a small amount of what appeared to be marijuana. At first I wasn’t sure, but if it looks like marijuana and smells like marijuana, it probably is not oregano. I dumped it out along the shoulder of the road.

Not too long ago I picked up this assortment of trash along a half-mile section of the road near our house. I am almost positive I know the place where this trash came from—the people live in a hoard about 2 minutes away from where the trash was found.

I found myself becoming very disgusted and angry, and I was seriously considering driving by their house and dumping the trash.

But I didn’t.

As part of the Sunday order of worship at the church I attend, the pastor says "As we do each week, let us pause now for a time of prayer and confession, beginning with moments of silent prayer…  I confess sometimes my mind wanders, and sometimes the confession is rather generic and nebulous, but not that next Sunday. I definitely had something to confess. She closes with a scripture about forgiveness, which varies from week to week, and then ends with "Friends, let us believe the good news of the gospel: In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven."

Whew.