One item you will never find in my kitchen is a sponge. I lhate them! They have all these crevices and crannies to trap debris and germs. You can tell how awful they are by the many helpful hints out there about how to sanitize them: boil them, put them through the dishwasher, microwave them. All of which is very well and good, but while the gunk may be sterilized and the germs killed, the sponge itself is still FILTHY. (One of our family sayings is “filthy, just filthy,” from a neighbor’s description of the old Magruder’s grocery store back in Virginia.)
So I was glad to run across two sayings or principles that tell us not to be like sponges.
The first is yet another idea I glommed from my Bible Study Fellowship teaching director. (Follow the link to their website if you’re interested in joining a group. They have locations worldwide. Next year they’re studying the New Testament book of Romans. If you’d like to try a taste first, you can still get in a visit as there are three more regular classes before the end of the class year. May 3 is the last “welcome” date.)
Anyway, this phrase popped up last week in the lecture. I thought it was striking, and I had never heard it before. When I looked it up it seemed to be used mostly for people dealing with borderline personality disorders in their family members, but I think it has a much broader application.
This image works only if it’s carefully explained, as the terms could easily be taken incorrectly. So, to be clear, being a sponge involves absorbing someone else’s negative emotions and letting them control you. Your spouse is angry; you absorb the anger and now you’re angry too. The problem has doubled. If, instead, you’re a mirror, then you simply acknowledge the other person’s anger but you don’t let it affect you. “I’m sorry you’re angry,” you say, calmly. Or, even more mirror-ishly, “I see that you’re angry.” Then go on from there. (This is pretty hard to do, admittedly, especially if the angry person is driving you crazy.) The mirror is a reflector, not a deflector, by the way. You’re not trying to get the angry person to direct his ire somewhere else, as that does nothing to reduce negative emotions but simply gets you off the hook.
In googling this phrase (which doesn’t occur all that often) I ran across: “Be a filter and not a sponge,” also a good principle. I saw it, interestingly enough, in some post or other about Ayn Rand, whose books came in for a rather blistering review from me some time ago. A reader was complaining that Rand had some ideas that she, the reader, didn’t agree with, and the wise blogger gave the “filter” answer. Maybe if more people had been filters instead of sponges we wouldn’t (ahem) be in the mess we’s currently in with our political situation. Just . . . pointing that out. I am utterly and completely amazed at the unthinking absorption of ideas that are patently ridiculous. But perhaps we won’t get too deep into those particular weeds.
Pity the poor sponge, trapped on its rock in the sea, able to take in only the nutrients that happen to flow into its cells! How could you be less like this hapless creature in your own life?