“Mamma, what’s that yucky green stuff in the ice box?”
Wait a minute. Do any of you know what an ice box was?
Years ago, those things that held food didn’t plug into the wall and were made out of wood. The door on the upper portion was not for ice cream or to freeze your meat and vegetables. You opened that door to put in a 25-pound block of ice. As the ice melted, you could put other food in with it. The ice absorbed heat, melted, and cooled the food in the lower section. Cool, huh?
By the time I entered this world, my parents had long-since replaced the ice box with a fancy thing called a refrigerator. No more visits from the Ice Man. By the way, Carol and I saw a real wooden ice box in the Tillamook County Museum in Tillamook, Oregon. Memories! Buy some Tillamook cheese while you’re there.
These new-fangled refrigerators plugged into the wall and had a compartment that would keep ice cream hard if we put it in the back, but it would freeze meat, vegetables, and water anywhere in that compartment.
Because of our upbringing, we still called it an ice box. However, I had to start calling them refrigerators because in the 1970s I was an appliance repairman, and no one knew what an ice box was.
But where was I? Oh, yes. It was in the 1950s and my parents were visiting some friends.
The mother came into the kitchen to answer the cry about yucky green stuff. “What’s the matter, Maureen?”
“Mamma, there’s yucky stuff on the cheese. What is it?” The little girl was pointing to a dull greenish-blue fuzz.
“Oh, my goodness! Mold is growing again. Well, let’s just cut the green off, and we can eat the rest.”
Today, we understand that the roots of the mold grow deep into the food, and we usually just throw the moldy food out. However, our ice bo – excuse me – our refrigerators today still grow mold under the right circumstances. And we now understand that mold and bacteria are growing before we can see any of it.
So how do we know whether or not the food is fit to eat? Usually, we smell it.
The fungi and bacteria on meat will normally give off an unpleasant odor before the yucky green stuff, or any slime, is visible.
I don’t want anyone to die, or even get sick, from food poisoning; so, years ago I developed one very important phrase as an appliance repairman, and I still say it today: If in Doubt, Throw it Out!
It’s worth memorizing because our health is much more important than a few dollars’ worth of food.
You can find on the internet the procedures for handling and caring for various kinds of food. And it’s quite simple.
But there is a more insidious poison growing in our culture. I call it spiritual and mental poisoning.
Mental health today is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and is complex, cumbersome, and costly! The primary reason is that people don’t see or smell the problem. This poisonous garbage has been insidiously foisted on our culture. But if it is culturally acceptable, it must be good. Right?
Wrong!
Many people are being accused and jailed for sexual immorality. It is gross, ugly, demeaning to men, women, and children, sexist, humanly degrading, and is one of three primary evils offered to our culture through theaters, television, advertisements, and DVDs.
Another evil is hatred. Blatant, cruel, murderous, evil hatred.
The third is evil music accompanied by gross, inane actions of the singers.
The church isn’t helping the situation because a large section of its members supports the garbage industry by paying for it and watching it; and many Christians are just like the world: they don’t seem to understand that it is poisoning humanity.
If people would simply evaluate what they’re watching and listening to, they would easily see that it is destroying us. But reading and studying the Bible would give them wisdom and alert them to the calamity they are bringing upon themselves.
First Thessalonians 5:22 says, “Stay away from everything that is evil.” Simple! That would cure most of the mental problems.
If people want to do what is right, they could objectively realize that it is not good for them. They would realize that it destroys families, society, and the church. They should get rid of it.
But for those who are not sure: If In Doubt, Throw It Out!
Actually, whoever is feasting on it, is either sick, or deceived by the world.
Judgment starts in the House of God, so you Christians should get the garbage out of your homes and lives. Then we can make a positive impact on the world.
Gene Linzey 