Lessons from Dickens on my ipod

I like to walk, and when I do I often listen to my ipod. For the last year or so, I've been listening either to lectures or to recorded books I've downloaded. The other day I was listening to a lecture on Bleak House, a long (900-some-page) novel by Dickens--one of his best, if you choose to tackle it. The lecture was by Arnold Weinstein of the Teaching Company (see www.thegreatcourses.com) and part of a series of lectures called Classic Novels.
Weinstein was making the point that one of Dickens' themes is how the world around us affects us--actually pollutes us--whether or not we are aware of it. One character in the novel is Jo, a poor crossing-sweeper who is nearly invisible to most of the people around him. Yet he has the power to affect other characters. Weinstein points to a story by the radical British journalist Richard Carlile (1790-1843) about a woman who goes to Edinburgh, Scottland, and pleads to passersby, "Help me. I'm your sister." Everyone says, "You're not my sister." But in the end, she dies and infects everyone with typhus. So they were connected to her and affected (infected) by her without being aware of it.
As I said in my first blog, we are all affected by the culture around us, the media we swim in, whether or not we are aware of it. The Bible says this: "Don't be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God's will is--what is good and pleasing and mature." (Romans 12:2 in the new Common English Bible)
This verse has been used by some to bludgeon people with the message, Don't be conformed to the world, as if that's a simple thing to understand. The problem is that those "patterns" are difficult to see. But maybe a good starting point is to acknowledge that we are being conformed by forces we can't even see. Then we can try to be transformed--not an easy task.
I'm thinking that transformation is a lifelong task that involves lots of grace. And I imagine certain spiritual practices might help us in that, such as prayer, service, being in community with others seeking to be transformed.
What do you think?