Last week I was discussing how I had to clean up my system after getting a virus. Surprisingly, someone asked me why. Why did it matter if "bad people snooped on me" anyway?

Well, if that was all there was to it I would still clean the system, but I wouldn't be so worried. The problem is snooping on me is the least of my troubles. The silly virus also tried hard to annoy me out of money and literally broke my system, then helpfully claimed they would be happy to fix it for me. That is sort of like if I were a window salesman and came to your house, broke all your windows, and took for only $100 each I could fix them all for you (I see you have some broken windows there!) Sigh.

But really, why clean anything?

I recall my mother chiding my brother about washing behind his ears, and he gave the very predictable response "They got themselves dirty, so they can get themselves clean!". But let's think about that. Why clean anything?

If you wash your car, why? A bird is going to come along and poo on it again, maybe before it is even dry. Does having the car clean make it go faster or slower or anything? Why bother, it is just going to get dirty again!

Why take a bath? I am just going to get dirty again. I might as well just be "medieval" and preach the religion of stinky is organic. So what if organic fungus starts growing all over me, I am just going to get dirty again! Stink is in the nose of the beholder (mostly everyone else but you)

And ladies, why sweep the floor or wash dishes? Your kids or husband are just going to tromp in with more mud (er, that isn't mud, right Holly?) on their shoes. And why bother wasting the time and effort and soap washing dishes? Just scrape the old food off, what's the big deal? I like to remember what I ate - for the month! At least until it all falls off...

You know I have non-religious friends who would freak at not having things clean. Not quite germ-a-phobic but very close. They insist on germ killing wipes in the conference rooms so they can wipe the table off before they go in and sit down for a meeting. When the flu was bad a couple years ago, one of them would go into the office and spray Lysol on their keyboard and chair every day before work.

Yes, I suppose we all want things to be neat and clean sooner or later. Even children don't like lollypops with sand on them, (although if you rinse them off they seem fine to me.) We worry about germs and about being sick. So why do some folks not have the same regard for their spiritual bodies that they do for their physical ones?

The bible speaks of being clean, of the filth of the flesh and the washing in pure water we receive when we obey the gospel. We are reminded to keep ourselves spotless, and those who fall back into sin are compared to a pig returning to the wallow or a dog eating its own vomit. Do we take these warnings and descriptions seriously?

As for once something it is cleaned it says clean - are you kidding? If that were true then why talk about renewing ourselves? It reminds me of the "disagreement" I tease my wife about - when I take a shower, I am clean. Yet she keeps washing my bath towels. If I am so clean, then wouldn't my rubbing my clean body on the towel make it cleaner? But somehow she disagrees. How unreasonable of her! (and lucky for all of you!)

Randy