It's not what gets to you, it's what gets through you

Pervious. No, I did not just mistype "previous." I'm sure you have heard of the word "impervious?" It means -

im·per·vi·ous/imˈpərvēəs/Adjective
1. Not allowing something to pass through; not penetrable.
2. Unable to be affected by: impervious to attempts to make him smile, he continued to be sullen.

Well, "pervious" is basically the opposite. OK - so it's a little-used word, I admit. I only saw it today, on my son's FaceBook posting about a convention he is at. It seems that they are finding ways to make concrete which is 'pervious,' and that simply means 'porous.' The reason they don't use the word 'porous' is because the product has a very controlled amount of porosity, yet retains enough of the strength to still be used in some (not all) of the places you would use regular concrete. You can pave a whole parking lot with it, and rain simply goes right through. That means you don't have to have all that drainage built in, with sloping surfaces, drainage grates, buried pipes, and the new thing - 'swales' which are basically ponds built to hold runoff from a parking lot until the water can settle into the ground or evaporate all by itself.

So what? I just thought of ways that we become porous. We let things in from around us, but if we are wise, we will find ways to let in only certain things, while retaining the strength we need to keep on doing what God has called us to do.

We need 'pervious people,' I guess!