from sad to offensive? :)

Okay, I should really just find some cute pics of my kids, post those, and be done (because, really, I should be in bed).  But I just got off of Facebook and I am once again pondering TV, its control over our culture, and cultural relevance.  I'm always a little bit (okay, a lot) bothered by how many people's status updates have to do with the latest tv show, etc.  Is this really what brings unity to us as a culture?  Just know that I'm sure this will offend someone, but that's really not my purpose.  Just wondering if maybe we, as believers, need to be shaken up a bit.  

If you've been in my house, you know that I LOVE books (we actually have a "library" and going to a bookstore is like going to a liquor store for an alcoholic - I can easily get carried away)!  I'm excited that so far my children share that love - just wish I had more time to read!  :)  Anyway, I think this whole post is an attempt to remind myself of why I don't want to succumb to the video/tv trap this summer when my kids are home.  It's so much easier (and I've been giving in to it way too often recently because I haven't felt so great), but is it worth the sacrifice?  I pray that instead, we'll be in the Word of God and in some good books.  I have a couple of quotes that I go back to when I think we're nuts and I'll get to those in a minute.  First, here's my brief testimony of how the absence of tv has changed our lives.  It used to be as normal as breathing.  I and my college friends could always talk about the latest happenings on "Days of Our Lives".  I remember in medical school we would have "ER" nights at our apartments and we all kept up with the latest drama.  "Oprah" gave us lots to talk about.  It actually did unite us.  For some reason that I cannot remember (the mercy of God), we decided (I'm sure my husband was the initiator on this one) to not watch tv for 6 months when I was pregnant with McKenna.  We've never been the same.  In all our years of marriage we've never paid for cable.  People think we're crazy, but I can honestly say that we've never regretted it.  Once we got away from it for an extended period of time, we were both shocked to see what we had been tolerating for years and years.  That's not to say that there haven't been seasons in which we watched it more than others, but we haven't watched it in the same way since.  And I can confidently say that in those seasons when I was watching it more (usually while nursing), it did nothing to truly nurture my spirit.  I will also say that it takes VERY little time to get sucked back in and to start rationalizing what I'm taking in.  We are all hopelessly sinful and easily deceived - need LOTS of grace!!  

And what about being culturally relevant.  This is a question I also think about a lot because if you aren't into the latest reality show, you're pretty much out of the loop in many conversations ( I will say that our closest friends don't watch tv much either, so we forget we're weird sometimes).  This has also come up recently because of some conversations with my daughter in which she's telling me that she's kind of weird in her class at school (she goes to a Christian school) because she doesn't watch all the shows that her friends watch and so she feels left out.  Hmmm.  I guess my question is this:  Did Jesus watch "Dancing with the Stars" so that He could participate in the conversations around Him?  Again, I want to reiterate that we're covered by grace and having been there ourselves (and knowing that we're totally missing some big revelations in our own lives), I'm not trying to say that I don't understand how it happens.  But I think it's okay to graciously and lovingly say to believers that maybe we're being controlled more than we think by a box that has become a huge consumer of our time and of our hearts.  Here's part of one of the quotes I was talking about earlier (more later; I have GOT to go to bed!!):

TELEVISION, THE GREAT LIFE-WASTER (from Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper):

Television is one of the greatest life-wasters of the modern age.  And, of course, the Internet is running to catch up, and may have caught up [this book was published in 2003 - I'm afraid I'm proof that he may be right about the Internet].  You can be more selective on the Internet, but you can also select worse things with only the Judge of the universe watching.  TV still reigns as the great life-waster.  The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem.  Just the ads are enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you're watching.  The greater problem is banality.  A mind fed daily on TV diminishes.  Your mind was made to know and love God.  Its facility for this great calling is ruined by excessive TV.  The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels.  Neil Postman shows why:  "What is happening in America is that television is transforming all serious public business into junk....Television disdains exposition, which is serious, sequential, rational, and complex.  It offers instead a mode of discourse in which everything is accessible, simplistic, concrete, and above all, entertaining.  As a result, America is the world's first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death."

I'll write more tomorrow after I get more sleep!!  :)