One Bad Berry

I don't know why this happens to me so often, but it seems like every time a get a container of berries, after a day or so, I end up getting a batch of moldy ones. It starts with the one fuzzy, smooshy berry that is tightly packed in with all her ripe yummy berry friends only to spread her moldiness to everyone around her. Then a third of the berries end up in the trash. Doesn't matter the berries: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries ... happens every time. I try to catch the rotting berries early and separate from them the rest of the batch, but sometimes miss them until it's too late. Perhaps it's the conditions. I read that fruit needs to be a low-humidity bin in the refrigerator. But then again it could be that when packaged, that one berry was already infected.

How's the old song go? ♫ One bad apple can spoil whole bunch, girl. ♫ True. As the song alleges, it's not just with fruit. I bought a bag of ink pens the other day for my Sunday School class. When I opened up the package, one pen had blown ink all over all the other pens. I didn't notice it until I started passing out the pens to my 7th and 8th graders. In the process I got blue ink all over my hands and the kids' hands. A good hand sanitizer later and all the pens and our hands were ink free.

So, of course, this can be with people, too. When comparing Myers-Briggs personality types recently, our family read aloud the description of an ENFJ. We have quite a few ENFJs in our family, including myself, my daughter, daughter-in-law, mother and father-in-law, to name a few. ENFJs are Extrovert, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging types. When reading the description, we learned something very intriguing: ENFJs

 "can unconsciously over-identify with others and pick up their burdens as if they were their own. In the process, ENFJs may risk their own sense of identity. They have a natural ability to mimic because of this highly developed ability to empathize by introjection." [Please Understand Me by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates]

I have noticed this about myself throughout my life. If you're speaking in a Southern accent, I'll slip into it. If you're using sarcasm, I'm right there with you. If you break down in tears, look out, here come the waterworks. It's why I can't see horror movies - they truly scare me to death. So basically, I'm dangerously ripe next to the moldy strawberry.

But a person doesn't need to be an ENFJ to be influenced by people around them. I've seen all kinds of children and adults absorb the characteristics of the people they hang out with, whether kind or troublemakers. It's why we as parents carefully watch who our children befriend, knowing behaviors, opinions and personality traits can rub off on our kids. Or likewise carefully observe what they watch on television that they don't pick up on qualities we don't want them to imitate. Adults need to be careful themselves, however, as they are also susceptible to being influenced by those around them.

I think that's why I love daily reading my Bible and going to church. In worship, I'm surrounded by a bunch of people who are all there for a good "sanitation" process. We all know what the world surrounds us with, so we congregate in church to be filled with the written and spoken Word to clean off the smearing ink and remove the moldy from our lives. And it's not something we can do once a week, hence the daily Bible reading. I need regular introspection to be sure I'm imitating Christ. 1 John 2:6 says we need to "walk as He walked." 2 Cor. 3:18 says we need to be "transformed into the same image from glory to glory." Phil. 2:5 tells us to have the "mind of Christ." And Eph. 5:1 tells us to be "imitators of God." I don't always watch entirely appropriate things on TV or hang out with trustworthy, moral people, so the reminder of what is Godly is constantly necessary.

The flip side of this is that God doesn't necessarily want us to remove the sinners from our lives. Let's face it, Jesus hung out with them regularly. We do, too, when in worship. The church is pew-packed with sinners, praise His name, so I fit right in. And when sharing the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13, Jesus recommended leaving the weeds among the wheat, "because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them." Plus, I think Christ hopes the wheat stalks will have an influence on the weeds. I know there have been plenty of wheat stalks in my life that have certainly made a difference on this weed.

Now if only the ripe berries would have an influence on the fuzzy ones ... then maybe the whole batch could be saved.