I remember when I first saw someone drop mentos into a bottle of coke. It was in a field, far enough away from the Boys Brigade bell tents to not cause a sticky mess on the (despite having tent inspection a few hours ago) chaos inside. As the mentos dropped, the bubbles got rather enthusiastic and the bottle jumped, bounced, exploded as those watching sprang back and watched.
What was really happening was that as the mentos dropped, the bubbles weren't just dancing from the sidelines, they had attached themselves to the tiny pits all over the surface of the mint. The bubbles want to attach themselves, but there is a fight between the mint (which is heavy and wants to sink to the bottom) and the bubbles, and as the bubbles push upwards, the mentos sink, pushing the soda up and out of the bottle with a blast (or something like that).
Our insides can feel a bit like a bottle of fizzy. We have so much going on - so many active bubbles dancing around - the whirlwind of emotions trying to balance the complexities of life. It's OK when we're stood still, but movement can leave us precarious for a while. If someone unscrewed our lid, we don't know what we would do.
And then someone drops in the mentos.
The mentos come in different forms - the facebook post that clicks our button, the email at the wrong moment, the voice from the past back to haunt us, triggering the memories that brought us to now. The one thing too many in a world that feels unstable right now, the news that hits us where it hurts.
And then we explode - we become the person we said we would never be and as we see the effect we can't stop the ferocious fountain, and the sticky mess reaches the already chaotic place we find ourselves in.
There is too much right now for many of us that could be our own mentos and we need to be careful about the positions we find ourselves in. There are far too many places we could be the mentos for others and we need to be gracious in our thinking about where we let go.
I've been thinking a lot about Philippians 4 lately as I've been trying to avoid being part of the mentos drop. It's hard to reflect on the goodness sometimes when something has made you angry, and I got really quite annoyed with a friend who told me to do this recently, because I wanted to rant..... but when the ranting is over, the fizziness subsides, and in the stillness, the reflection is easier - and reflecting on the goodness becomes more of who we are. It doesn't mean the problem necessarily goes away, but it helps us to hold it differently.
"I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious - the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realised. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies" Philippians 4:8-9 (MSG)
