Reality is NOT a TV Genre...
Over the past two years I have had a great deal of time to contemplate.
As I think about my life and the turns it has taken, I have come to the realization that there is much more to life than we can adequately take in. And instead of trying to sort out and enjoy the Abundant Life that God has offered us as a free gift, we have taken to filling our lives with cheap substitutes. TXTing and IMing have replaced a conversation over a cup of coffee, or even a phone call. Home entertainment systems have swallowed up the Living Room conversation. (Living Room - ironic. Nowadays it seems more like an Electronic Brainwashing Chamber: Half-dead zombies staring at a rectangular pattern taking in light and sound patterns to dull their minds from the life around them.)
We have never before had more "time saving" devices or technologies on our hands. Crossing an ocean is a matter of hours, not months. Dinner can be prepared, consumed and tidied in less than an hour. Laundry machines have taken the place of the daily walk to the stream with a basketful of clothes. And instead of investing that extra time into things that matter, we settle for the convenient and complain that we never have enough time for people.
God's highest purpose for our lives is to love Him. And we demonstrate our love for God by living in community with one another. Yet instead of spending time with each other, we obsess about all the barriers in the way: My house isn't tidy enough. They live on the other side of town. I'm too busy to think.
And every night, we quietly burn our time in front of our television sets and computer monitors, mindlessly numbing our senses and depriving ourselves of what we were made to be - relational beings.
This is as much a personal confession as it is a wake-up call for all of us. Tonight, I made a deliberate choice to not turn on the television. Instead, I read a book. And it was a good read. (Click here if you would like the title.)
What do we do to avoid real human contact? Watch a movie? Surf social networking sites? It is obviously hypocritical of me to disparage these things completely. But when they become the primary source of our "personal" interactions, we have lost a great deal of our humanity.
It's been 30 days since I have held my wife's hand or hugged my children. And as I think about the upcoming re-entry on Saturday, I am worried that all these substitutes are strengthening their stranglehold on all of us. Shortly I'll be heading out the door for another week of work, and the cycle will resume.
What's a man to do?
As I think about my life and the turns it has taken, I have come to the realization that there is much more to life than we can adequately take in. And instead of trying to sort out and enjoy the Abundant Life that God has offered us as a free gift, we have taken to filling our lives with cheap substitutes. TXTing and IMing have replaced a conversation over a cup of coffee, or even a phone call. Home entertainment systems have swallowed up the Living Room conversation. (Living Room - ironic. Nowadays it seems more like an Electronic Brainwashing Chamber: Half-dead zombies staring at a rectangular pattern taking in light and sound patterns to dull their minds from the life around them.)
We have never before had more "time saving" devices or technologies on our hands. Crossing an ocean is a matter of hours, not months. Dinner can be prepared, consumed and tidied in less than an hour. Laundry machines have taken the place of the daily walk to the stream with a basketful of clothes. And instead of investing that extra time into things that matter, we settle for the convenient and complain that we never have enough time for people.
God's highest purpose for our lives is to love Him. And we demonstrate our love for God by living in community with one another. Yet instead of spending time with each other, we obsess about all the barriers in the way: My house isn't tidy enough. They live on the other side of town. I'm too busy to think.
And every night, we quietly burn our time in front of our television sets and computer monitors, mindlessly numbing our senses and depriving ourselves of what we were made to be - relational beings.
This is as much a personal confession as it is a wake-up call for all of us. Tonight, I made a deliberate choice to not turn on the television. Instead, I read a book. And it was a good read. (Click here if you would like the title.)
What do we do to avoid real human contact? Watch a movie? Surf social networking sites? It is obviously hypocritical of me to disparage these things completely. But when they become the primary source of our "personal" interactions, we have lost a great deal of our humanity.
It's been 30 days since I have held my wife's hand or hugged my children. And as I think about the upcoming re-entry on Saturday, I am worried that all these substitutes are strengthening their stranglehold on all of us. Shortly I'll be heading out the door for another week of work, and the cycle will resume.
What's a man to do?
