It is not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defined by what comes from your heart. Mark 7:15 (NLT)
1
When we lived in Bolivia,
washing hands before eating
was not ritual. It was survival,
especially if we had just come
from the market. Hidden enemies
riddled the spaces between the booths,
inhabited the dust of the path,
and rode down the beams of light.
They coated the skins
of papaya apple mango grape.
We washed our food
even as we cleansed our hands.
Otherwise what came from the outside
would—and did—defile the body.
2
Purity of heart
is more complicated
than clean hands.
It's lack
more deadly.
