“The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.
It is
not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for
heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of
the world.
It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality
we
drink in every night.”
Each Lenten season for the past several years now, I have taken a
Facebook fast. I sign off and change my profile picture to one that has a
quote about Lent and come up with some sort of cover photo that reflects the
Lenten season. I don't do that to signal how wonderful and pious I am.
It's just a way to let people know, if they're looking for me, that I'm
not going to be on there for forty days. With the utter buy-in we all now have
of social media, I actually did have to get on several times because it's become
one of the main ways we communicate with one another.
What I find each year that I participate in this fast, is how much
I miss seeing my friends' news: the pregnancy updates, the precious
photos of our children, vacation pics and funny asides about our day.
They bring a smile throughout the day and help me keep in touch with
loved ones I don't get to see every day. This is the brilliance of
Facebook: extending our community.
What I don't miss is the noise--the "prime-time dribble of
triviality".
Our family doesn't cut ourselves
off from the world, but through the dual miracles of DVRs and Netflix, we're
able to avoid commercials and a lot of the perfectly awful shows on television.
And yet, we'll go right ahead and turn on the tiny computers in our hands
and see some of the same things we deliberately chose to avoid. It comes at you with
lightning speed and eats away at your resolve. "Well, if all these
people are watching it, it can't be that bad." "Her daughter is
wearing those clothes, so, maybe I need to loosen up." "His son
is going, so, I should probably let mine."
Standing strong for our beliefs in this culture is hard, but we
aren't making it easy on each other, are we? Each song with questionable
lyrics that we promote because the music sounds great and the singer is
handsome and "classy", each episode we watch celebrating characters
with all the morals of an alley cat, each joke we share that we would never
tell in public--these are all adding our vote, our thumbs-up to this toxic
culture around us.
I need friends and a community around me that help me
make the right choices and do the right things.
There is strength in
numbers, friends, and we need to use the beauty of our extended communities to
build each other up and cheer each other on.
Us. We. Me and You.
That's who can change our
culture and help us build strong families. That's who can be a light in
our world. One choice at a time.
Choose life.
