“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”

We use the word “pollution” most often as it relates to the quality of our water and air.  However, pollution is the “presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects”.  So, we have pollution all around us in everything, including the cultures of our organizations.  We’d rather, and we should, look to the other side of the equation for purity and genuineness within our people and how we work with each other.  I’m old enough to remember when people smoked at work.  My first job out of Graduate School was at Pratt & Whitney and it was filled with cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke all day long. Yes, real smoke, even in enclosed small offices.  It was a polluted place environmentally that was accepted as a norm. Today, even one whiff of a cigarette in an office causes everyone to pay attention. The point is, once the goal is to experience clean and pure, the pollution becomes more obvious and we don’t want to go back.  Where and what needs to be cleaned and cleared up within our cultures?  For example, what if the goal was “total clear air through honesty – with a never a lie to be told”.  That would be a great start to a clean air culture.

I like this verse from James (he is one of my favorite authors of the Bible because he is so granular with how we live and work) as he tries to explain to us what the pure nature of the practicing of our faith can be and that the rest that infiltrates our faith and our lives is just the opposite of purity; pollution.  He goes on to say that these things that come from the world can be corrupting and corrosive within us.  I pray this day that as we dive into our work that we’d do so with an aim of purity and genuineness that would reveal to others a breath of fresh, clean and clear air.

Reference: James 1:27 (New Living Translation)