Garbage In-Garbage Out

There is a phrase graphically describing a common cause of computer errors, glitches, operator error. etc.: garbage in, garbage out.  In plain English, and it's true in any walk of life, you get out of something whatever you put into it, only more so.

The obvious lesson here is: set our minds on our goal in order to succeed. Something more subtle occurs to me. Daily we are bombarded with ideas and lifestyles that are foreign to us. Sometimes it seems my mind is a vacuum, ready to absorb every stray thought, good or bad or indifferent, that comes my way. It's so easy to just take in all the opinions, get used to them, let them blend in, tolerate them as "acceptable, alternative" versions of life, giving them equal validity to the moral code I grew up with.

I know when I hear something often enough, it becomes less shocking, less foreign, begins to sound okay to me; it takes up residence in my brain and masquerades as my own thoughts. You know, there is a bird, I think it's the cuckoo, that avoids building, preferring to lay its eggs in another bird's nest. When the babies hatch, the mother, unaware of the intrusion, unknowingly feeds the interloper, who crowd out the tiny chicks the nest was built for.

That may be the origin of the saying, "You can't stop a bird from flying over your head, but you don't have to let it build a nest in your hair". We need to take care what thoughts we allow to take root in our minds and hearts. There's just no telling what weeds will sprout up in our lives. I wrote a little verse to remind me.

WORD NEST  

Words, unlike birds, once on the wing

Can't be recalled or turned away.

Once given place, they soar through space,

Then lodge in the heart to stay.

If we can make a habit to keep our minds filled with the right stuff, then that other junk just floats on by.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise think about these things.       Philippians 4:8, NIV.

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