Sneaky Mold

I have a Stanley Cup. Never knew what the cup was until someone said, “Oh, you have a Stanley.” How nice! Nice? I guess I didn’t realize it was a popular drink holder that keeps my beverage (water) cold. I do like it. It holds 35 ounces, which for me means I am more than halfway to my daily water goal. Unfortunately, I rarely get past drinking a full Stanley. I just forget to drink. Therefore, often, my Stanley runs into a second day of use on the same fill-up. I always add a Liquid IV packet - a flavored electrolyte to my water to make me drink it more often. But like I said, it can run into the next day before I finish it. That’s bad.

I know mold can form in the cup, so I wash it thoroughly after every use. The straw, too - as I’ve been told that’s where mold first grows. I let it sit on a dish towel on the counter to dry or wipe it out before refilling it. But today, as I was cleaning it, I looked really closely at the lid. Okay, it looked good. But as I was putting it on the dish towel, something caught my eye. There was a clear band all the way up on the lid. I missed seeing it before. So I pulled it off to look at the grooves, and whoa, there was black! Black mold was scattered across the ring!

I can’t eat blue cheese or mess with plants anymore because the mold can’t be tolerated in my post-transplant system. Yet here I was, drinking from my cool Stanley that clearly had mold on it for some time! I filled a jar, added soap and bleach, and soaked the ring. I used a different cup today, deciding to let the Stanley rest and dry completely before using it again.

It got me thinking, though, of how sneaky mold is. How many other people wash their cups with just a swish of water? How many kids’ cups get a thorough cleaning? It led me to think that if mold can be sneaky and hide where I don’t want it, what about sin? Here we are about to enter into what people call “Little Lent.” Advent becomes a time of preparation for the great feast of Christmas. It’s like Lent is for Easter, but for a shorter time period. Hard to believe Advent is a time for me to be somber like in Lent. But as it’s been quite a while since Lent, so its a great time to reflect on the condition of my soul, much like the condition of my Stanley. So I asked myself, in this time of preparing, are there bad habits like laziness, sloth, impatience, lack of discipline, pride, lust, envy, gluttony, or greed hiding secretly in my life? Do I not look within but find fault in others, in God? Will I make plans to get to confession sooner rather than later? Do I walk the walk or just talk the walk?

Swishing sin out by saying it’s not that big a deal is like running water through the cup. The likelihood of bacterial buildup will increase and eventually create a bigger problem. Advent doesn’t have to be a somber time but one of joy, because it leads me to the great feast of our Lord’s birth, giving my soul time to be thoroughly cleansed. I will be praying, fasting, and doing penance for those I love as I buy gifts for them. I’ve decided to watch more closely every day on how well I do, looking at each day in a deeper way to prevent any mold, er, I mean sin. I can’t take that risk of mold to hit my lungs, nor for grave sin to hit my soul.

How does your insulated cups/lids/soul look? Time for a thorough clean out this Advent?