In 2002 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, commissioned a survey in which they discovered that chewing gum was the major source of staining on pavements. They cite “the greatest problems are around facilities such as schools, cinemas and swimming pools that are frequented by children and young people.” You can read it… it’s in the post.
One of the proposals for reversing this trend is the appointing of street wardens who may issue 50 pound “on-the-spot fines.” In other words, if you get caught spitting out a wad of gum it could cost you twenty-five bucks…
Other proposals include the restriction of gum sales in areas of particularly heavy deposits of chewed gum and the development of non-sticky or biodegradable gum.
I think they need to do what they did when I was a kiddo… if you got caught chewing gum you had to spend after school time scraping gum off the bottoms of school desks or the underside of bleacher seats.
At any rate… over the years I’ve stepped in a lot of stuff and among the more unpleasant has been a big glob of sticky gum. Sticky gum is hard to get off your shoe… so it is best to dispose of the sticky stuff properly, so it does not cling your shoe.
In our text today, God is speaking to us about the proper disposal of things in our past and present that inhibit or distract us from making forward progress in our journey of faith and our relationship with Christ.