Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee. ~Saint Augustine
We often would listen to talk radio too and, of course, Christian stations also. He was saying that since the fast, he has enjoyed quiet. He does not listen to much radio, just a few minutes a day periodically. He likes music playing softly in the evenings at times, but even then not as much as we used to do.
I told him that it was strange because I have been feeling the exact same thing. I am far more at peace with quiet, not looking to turn on something producing sound, and far more in peace when it is quiet. I think I listened to ten minutes of radio all this week. I find that I am less inclined to yell when things are making me upset. I am more inclined to think of a way to respond more positively. I am not telling the dog, cat, or child to move because one of them is in the way between the remote and the TV or yelling at them to quiet down (so counterproductive and ironic, that) so I can hear a show or the news. Why did I ever treated them as if they were less important to me than what I might be missing on TV or the radio?
Now I am wondering....was I using these things to drown out the noise in my mind, and, in so doing, adding more noise, tension, and stress in my mind, in my home? Did I create a no-win situation where all the things I used in an effort to achieve escapism were actually trapping me into the need to escape even more? Worse: Was I trying to drown out God too? (I have to be honest here, I knew down deep that I was even when it was not intentional, but was it really ever unintentional?)
Our TV service allows us to turn it off six months out of the year. It is scheduled to come back on the week before Christmas, but we have said we will probably turn it on before Thanksgiving. I am not sure what we will do after Christmas exactly yet. Maybe we will leave it on as it will be dark and cold outside so early in the evening and we will limit ourselves from watching much. Maybe we will save the money and just turn it off for good...?
A couple more thoughts:
Isn't watching TV a rather selfish indulgence? Not that we should never enjoy anything and not that we should never watch TV just for fun sometimes, but it is the amount of it, as well as content. I wonder if we purposely use it to artificially fill an emptiness in ourselves which would be better filled by serving God and other people.
How does watching hours of TV each day associate with living in the Kingdom, or at least are preparing our souls to be living in the Kingdom? Are we going to expect heaven to be a place where we are constantly entertained? Let's be honest here! We, most likely, have some expectation along those lines, because we would naturally tend to associate what brings us pleasure here as what will bring us pleasure in heaven.
I thought I was pretty strict with the TV before, but when I stepped away from it completely, I realized that the pleasure it provides is not lasting nor genuine and more often it adds tension in my home and pushes God aside. With a better perspective on how it affects my family, I will be far more careful with it in the future.
~ My Lord, thank you for the agreement my husband and I, and even our daughter, share in regards to enjoying the quiet and having peace in it. ~
