Welcoming the Water

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When I awoke yesterday, something smelled strangely. I went outside to discover that it had rained, and I found myself excited about what the day might bring because the best days in my life or for my life are always rainy. I have written quite a bit, such as this, which I wrote yesterday during lunch. I welcome the water, because God is in the rain. A friend of mine on Facebook posted the following story which I find useful for commentary on today's post.

The Stranger

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mum taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger ... he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies. If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind. Sometimes, Mum would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honour them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home - not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our long time visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn't permit the liberal use of alcohol but the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked ... and NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents' den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name? ... We just call him 'TV.' He has a wife now ... we call her 'Computer.' Their first child is "Cell Phone". Second child "I Pod " And JUST BORN THIS YEAR WAS a Grandchild: IPAD

I found this story fascinating personally, because I have been reading recently about Philo Farnsworth, the creator of the technology that brought us Television. His son recounts that, despite his father creating the infernal contraption, his father advised against them having one in their home. Such advice always piques my interest when someone who accomplishes something advises against it.

I already wrote at length about how we invite evil to approach us any time it likes by virtue of the gadgets we carry with us. It reminds me of a poem my paternal grandfather used to quote: "All the water in the world, no matter how it tried, could never sink the smallest ship unless it got inside. All the evil in the world, the blackest kind of sin, cannot hurt you the least bit unless you let it in". My parents hated TV, and for many years we had no channel access at all, my parents choosing instead to purchase movies they felt it wise to allow into our home. I will be forever grateful for that wisdom! Maybe it left me naive in the world, but it protected me from the allowances other people took, from acquiescence, and from permissiveness of things that they felt ought not be tolerated and that I now in kind also refuse to tolerate let alone support.

It concerns me greatly that so many parents procure these gadgets as a surrogate for parenting. I watch children in church, sometimes as young as two years old, playing games on their parents' iPhone, and in some sad cases on their OWN iphones! We seek to be distracted, and as CS Lewis wrote, too often we do not desire true nakedness in prayer. We like to look like we are interested in something while we seek any and every diversion when the opportunity comes. How many children have started down the dark path of abuse and crime because of their ease of access to electronic gadgetry?

Since I don't have a night class every evening this semester, I took time, albeit unwisely, to view some of the jejune programming on during prime time. Without mentioning the names of any specific program so as not to offend any readers for their personal preference, I found the programs all basically the same. They depict a bunch of people who are doing neither what they like nor what they ought who are fascinated with pleasure, particularly of the sexual kind. It is all they talk about, all they seek, and all they send as a message to those who watch. I have heard plenty of criticisms from friends on facebook about prime time programming, and having seen it myself, I concur with their conclusion that it exists in order to send a message that promiscuity is permissive, that selfishness is society, that saintliness is silly, that achievement is awkward, the work is for the woebegone loser, and that primeval and primate behaviors are preferable to gentlemanly behavior.

Rather than welcoming the water of the world, it behooves us to welcome Living Water into our homes. Last night, rather than turn on the same quesquilia into the loft, I opened my scriptures. Tonight, I will probably review my copy of the Screwtape Letters (which I have read about a dozen times and from which I quote frequently), to see what other ways in which I have recently been deceived. I realized that I can either sit for several hours each evening while the filth of the world washes over me or I can follow the example of my parents and choose which guests I invite to sojourn in my home. I almost regret buying this television, but I can choose to overcome that and turn it from my master to my servant. After all, it is not so much a question of what happens to us as much it is a question of what we do with what happens. I will follow Joshua's admonition: "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15).