21 November 2009

boob tube

I will never understand the culture in which TV is a member of the family.

Some people turn on the TV first thing when they get up in the morning (if they even turned it off the night before).  I like to have a cup of coffee and stare out the window, maybe check my e-mail.  I'm not too fond of strangers on the telly talking loudly at me while I'm trying to enjoy my morning.

Some people never turn the TV off.  They NEVER TURN THE TV OFF.  Whether nobody's watching or everybody's watching, or everybody's in the room with the TV but nobody's watching, or people are back and forth, the TV is always on, stuck on some lame show that nobody really wants to pay attention to.  Despite this fact, it never occurs to somebody to turn the darn thing off!  Growing up, we only turned the TV on for a couple hours a day, and watched it the whole time it was on.  Then, when the show was over, or our brains had rotted enough, we turned it off.

TV is like candy or dessert.  It's fun and good in small doses.  In fact, I like good TV shows as much as I like movies.  House, Bones, NCIS, Law and Order - they're like mini-movies that I get to watch every week.  But 95% of television is total CRAP, which is why I don't understand why people want to have it on so often. 

As long as I'm discussing crap, I might as well tell you about my least favorite TV channel ever: The Freakshow Channel.  Whoops, I'm sorry, I meant TLC, The Learning Channel.  This channel takes advantage of people's desire for fame, recognition, or even just an understanding ear, and exploits them as freaks for their differences.  And we, the American population, watch them like we would the Fat Lady at the circus.  Any misplaced expectation on the part of the subjects of the show that they would be understood and seen as normal through publicity is shot to hell as they are paraded around on television as DIFFERENT and WEIRD. 

Anyway.  That's my morning rant.  Now back to my coffee.

17 November 2009

Failure (is a good thing)

I would like to apologize for the post I made earlier, if you read it before I deleted it.  Regardless, I apologize.  A friend had expressed a certain sentiment to me and I took it as a personal affront.  The blog post that resulted from my pissiness was a whiny, asinine, foundationless retaliation to something that I probably misperceive. 

God has gifted me with comprehension, memorization, and a handful of other talents.  I have twisted those gifts into arrogance, superiority, a judgmental attitude, ill patience, elitism, and chip on my shoulder.  As usual, humankind perverts the blessings of God to their own misconceived and often evil devices.  I often call people stupid (though, mercifully, not to their faces).  I get frustrated when people don't understand what I think is simple and obvious.  I resent people for resenting the fact that I often blow the curve, only, while their resentment probably passes, mine builds and festers until I have a generally disdainful attitude directed at everybody that I think unjustly alienates me for being "the smart kid"  - which is not something that really happens in college, but did in middle school and high school, which just shows how much I do harbor and let fester old paper cut injuries.  In truth, it's most likely my arrogantly disdainful attitude that turns people away in the first place.  I nurture and cultivate the presumed injury of this rift, feeding it like a carnivorous plant.  I keep my distance and build walls with impressive (albeit often useless) knowledge and continue to subjugate people, taking enormous self-satisfaction in my position of lone ranger intelligensia. 

In short, I fail to love enough.  I fail to be patient, I fail to be humble, I fail to be vulnerable.  I fail to uphold and uplift and encourage sincerely.  I fail to be Christ to others. 

I tell you this to admit my own brokenness, so that maybe some good will come of it.  In fact, good has already come of it.  God loves brokenness, because it is in our brokenness that we realize how much we need him.  When we fail, God shines.  He shines because he forgives us through Christ's blood, and because he uses our weaknesses for his purposes.  God has no use for superheroes or perfect people.  He wants wayward prodigal sons and daughters who can be reconciled to him, and who through their weakness and brokenness can show the way home to the equally wayward.

We are all broken, injured, prideful, sinful.  But we are not abandoned to the unhappiness of our dark paths.  "If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.  And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.  And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt, you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in."
- Isaiah 58:10-12