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REMEMBER 'LAW OF GARBAGE TRUCK' AND LET THEIR BE NO ROOM WHEN TRASH ARRIVES

When folks throw garbage at you, treat it as just that: a case where they have been trashed themselves and are looking for an outlet.

Don't take it personally. Bless them; move on. Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it.

They call that the "law of the garbage truck." What it takes, sometimes, are "buttons." First, a reset button, like on your computer. Every day, ask God for the contrition and grace you need and then reset your spirit to forget the guilt and anger and resentment that have built like trash from past events; start the day like it's a clean slate.

Each morning, "reboot." Clear the screen. See Christ. Don't remain mired in your personal history.

How many past insults, past hurts, past missed opportunities or antagonisms or "failures" (or sins) still haunt you? Did you ever consider how often you let them weigh you down just by thinking of them?

Bad thoughts are flags of litter (or piles of sludge).

Such trash. Put too a button for a switch that lights a "no vacancy" sign.

That is, leave no room for negative thoughts. They too are waste. Let nothing negative from others enter. When people try to feed you their refuse, when they say hurtful things, treat it like a foreign language.

Stop going to the hum and murmur of the enemy.

As a preacher points out, we have to listen carefully. We have to know what is a good sound and what is not. There are bats that swoop down for frogs but must be extraordinarily cautious about the poisonous ones. These bats listen. The poisonous frogs make a screech that is slightly more shrill.

So tuned in are the bats that they know which frogs to eat and which to avoid -- as we must also choose what we accept as ideas.

The enemy wants to spoil your day. Don't let him. He wants to trash your holidays. He wants to contaminate your conception of life.

How do we put up a "no vacancy" sign"? How do we keep our slate clean?

We have to cast out various "spirits" -- remove them from where they reside deep within. Name the "spirit of anger," break its hold in the Name of Jesus, and cast it to the foot of the Cross for disposal according to His Will -- never to return, sealed against, in the Name of Jesus; make the Sign of the Cross on your lips. (As you cast it out, you may even want to physically exhale it as a form of punctuation.)

Expel the garbage that has built up. Throw out the trash. Turn on your spiritual garbage disposal. One by one expel also these common spirits that haunt us:

The spirit of rage.

The spirit of resentment.

The spirit of jealousy.

The spirit of regret.

The spirit of guilt.

The spirit of lust.

The spirit of greed.

The spirit of negativity.

Break and cast each out every morning during prayer or Communion and fill the empty space with love, which will create good thoughts without your even trying! Empty yourself of self and God will enter.

You'll start to feel like a new person.

Hear not the screech of the enemy -- that is, don't go for it. Know where it is, and stay far from it. Go to the small, still voice.

Look at your mind the same way you do a window: when you open the blinds, it is to let in the sun (not clouds).

Do we have to face reality? Yes. But too often we let the perceptions of others shape our own -- including negativity about ourselves. Poison. Put it in the waste can. If you're faithful enough, there is no room for it.

Pick and choose.

Don't go after the wrong frog.

And don't become "attached" to a hurt.

When we think about something over and again -- an insult, a wrong action by someone, a misconception they have spread -- we only bind ourselves to that person, and we surely do not want to do that. We bind ourselves and have a bad day over it. It rots within.

Forgive, reject the scraps, and move on without looking back. Don't become a landfill!

"Oh Lord," we must say, "protect my mind from wrongful thoughts, and from the hurts of the enemy. Seal me." Force the negative out. No Vacancy.

Learn to quickly replace negative thoughts with positive ones, worries with hopes, "downer" thoughts with thoughts about things you plan to do (that are pleasant) and it can change your life and perhaps your afterlife as well, for when we die we step into the reality towards which we have oriented.