The Brita Life

So I bought a Brita water filter. Not one of those pitchers, but the kind that screws onto your faucet. To be perfectly honest I did not do this to save the planet, but to save money on buying bottled water. I'm not that green I guess just cheap. Well moving on, the filter has a light system that tells the consumer when the filter has gone bad and needs to be replaced. Much like the traffic signal system, a green light means you are good to go, and a solid red light means do not drink this water it is poisonous. Maybe not poisonous, but at the very least, not filtered which is the same as poison I'm sure. Well anyway, the other day I noticed that my ice-cold refreshing water was tasting a little bit funny so I decided to replace the filter, realizing it had been some time since the filter had been replaced. So I changed the filter, did a taste test, and declared everything back to normal. I then noticed that the indicator light on the filter was no longer coming on. So whether the filter is on green for go or on red for poison water, I will not know unless I notice a difference in how it tastes. To be perfectly honest as long as the water is super cold, it all tastes the same, so I will probably slowly ingest poison without knowing it until I just drop dead. I have no idea if the filter is even doing its job. The whole filter system should probably be replaced.

I can't help but think how our lives tend to function in the same way as the Brita water filter. We all have a filter, whether we choose to acknowledge its presence or not, we have ways of determining what is good and healthy for us and what is not. Everyday we encounter a number of different situations and scenarios. These different situations will have different degrees of influence on us based on what kind of filter we have. I think a lot of us are having problems with our filters. I started thinking about this one day during during one of my classes. In the class we were discussing the impact of the media on youth culture, and whether or not being exposed to certain things at an early age is healthy for growth and development. My professor asked a very interesting question. He asked the class who all had seen someone having sex before. Not necessarily in person, just in a movie, on the internet, or what have you. This question really stuck out to me. I really began thinking about how much of an impact the things I watch have on me. The class was about spiritual formation, so his ultimate question was "does whatever you are doing help mold or shape you into a greater likeness of Jesus Christ or does it do the opposite?" I think this a great filter. But it is only a great filter if becoming like Jesus is your goal.

Why did I buy the Brita filter? While I wanted to save money, the ultimate goal was pure and clean water. In order to stay healthy and feel healthy, I need to first put clean and pure things in. When I had the light, it was easy to tell when I was doing this, but now that the light has gone out, it's not as easy. I think it is time we checked our filters. Maybe they need to be changed, or maybe we have become really desensitized and our filter lights have gone out. I think we need to watch what we take in, need to monitor what is influencing us. But the filter is not the end goal, it is simply a tool that helps us get there. This is not a post about how we must remove everything "secular" from our lives. This is however a post calling us to examine how much influence any form of media has on our lives. I don't think that media controls our lives, but I do think it impacts us on some level.

Just recently my roommate and I have undertaken the quest of watching every Seinfeld episode in order before we graduate from college. I am a long-time Seinfeld fan and enjoy watching the show. But it might be time to check the filter. While I might not mirror the lifestyles of the characters on the show, I do however find myself being quite sarcastic and biting towards people at times. I will probably continue watching the show and complete our quest, but that doesn't mean I have to let the things I watch influence how I act. So when is the last time you checked your filter? Are the things you are watching or listening to strengthening or breaking down your relationships? Maybe I'm on to something...or maybe it's just a musing of a modern-day sasquatch