Tonight when I was preparing my papers to throw i noticed that the "Scene" section, which is the part of Tulsa World that carries entertainment news, was thicker than the front page section that prints local and world news. I wonder if this is not going to become the trend.
In 1994, and estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed during the genocide, lasting nearly 100 days. Twenty percent of the countries population died, while the United Nations pulled out all assistance. Americans were glued to the television watching the OJ Simpson trial.
Our search for entertainment is killing our sense of awareness!
I grew up on movies and television. It was a favorite hobby of my family. We didn't spend much time outdoors and most Friday nights were movie nights. I speak as one who is certainly over-entertained. But also as one who is growing sick of it.
It's not enough that all shows and movies are the same now, we still seem to crave more and become more addicted to the idiot-box. Even when we are not watching, we have it on for "noise". Little do we know that the nosie leaks its messages into our sub-concious even then. And it's more than shows, it's commericals, telling us we must have more. All the while, glued to it, we become less aware of the world around us. The needs of our neighbors, literally and figuratively, get lost. And without knowing, we ourselves become less and less equipped to deal with reality, as we are more conditioned to the world of fantasy. Our reality becomes skewed, and our senses become weakened. Sooner than we can realize it, our entertainment works its way into every conversation and we are speaking to each other in movie quotes and commercial lingo. How life-giving is that?
Now the extreme...people who don't watch, who don't spend there God-given time engrossed in entertainment are viewed as "too religious" and outcasts of society. After all, to even mention life without the necessary dose of entertainment is unheard of. One is met with defensiveness of, "what do you want us to do, live in a cave?" As if that's the alternative for one, and secondly, and sadly, we have been made to think that the lack of entertainament makes us too primitive to exist in society. So then, we try and "regulate" it at times in guility response to what we know we should be doing instead. But we all know the necessary dosage, the controlled habit, still has a way of becoming an over-dose, and overdoses are always killers.
So what's the message in all of this? I think perhaps it's time to tune out for a while. I think that looks different for all of us. I don't know what it looks like for you. But at least even a short-term media fast would do us good. Whenever you do this, you will always find reasons "you have to have it". Listen to that thought alone. Anything folks that one "has to have"...by definiton, is an addiction.
But we cannot turn tuning out into piety. The idea of learning to be "Christianly" aware is never about the absence of something, but rather the involvement in Christian mission. The challenge can never be just to tune out. The over indulgence of entertainment has made that easy. We are too good at tuning out already. But the chief drive is for us to become people who are prayerfully aware. Aware to needs. Aware to suffering. Aware of the presence of God and when to celebrate it.
So, simply put, perhaps it is time to tune out in order to tune in. Be a sober people as we are called to be. And let us no longer disgrace the Faith by letting people see us Under-aware!
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