Out of the Loop

It's nights like tonight that I love not having a television. Rachel spent the night at a friend's last night, so I hadn't seen her since yesterday morning. I was excited to have her home! After sitting down and catching up, we put on our jackets and walked to Fricano's Pizza for a little Friday night dinner date. It was a slow walk home as the sky was beginning to darken. We came back home to silence and space. We were a little bit bored, but it was nice to just rest together.

If we had access to television in our house, it may have also been nice to watch that show we like. But personally, I know that I tend to zone in, carry on to another show, and I would most likely let the night slip away without ever really connecting with my wife on an emotional level. 

Even having a computer can be a way to avoid a situation or boredom itself. Maybe part of the reason man keeps inventing new things is to make him busy. 

It is so refreshing to let go of that need to be busy and to let myself be bored a little bit. I think it should be a natural rhythm of our lives. Before electricity, when evening came, activity and work came to a close and families were drawn into a time of rest. Are we better off now? Well, yes in
a lot of ways. But not in every way. For the most part, we have overstimulated ourselves, making it possible to do do do work work work make make make and never rest except to sleep. What would it look like to have a regular rhythm of rest, boredom, unplugging each day? I think that's what the sabbath was all about.

When I was nine my parents made the decision to shut off our television. I had a fit! But once it's gone for a little bit, you don't miss it so much. One boring afternoon after school (when I probably would have been watching television), I spotted my dad's old Takamine in its case. I asked my dad if he could teach me some chords and he did. Six months later I was starting to play guitar with the worship team at church. At fifteen, when I moved to San Diego, I started a worship band for my youth group. Then I took a music theory course. Then I went to college and majored in music. Then I got my masters in music. Would that have happened if on that one boring afternoon I had the easy out of television*? Who is to say?

So Rachel and I also decided to not have television in our house, and we're happy about that. We read, I write, we talk, we cook, we have people over, we watch a movie together, and when there's nothing left to do, we just relax. Yes, some nights we are a little bored. Yes, we are often out of the loop concerning hot news, reality tv, or politics. But I am glad that we have a little more silence in our lives. I am glad I have more opportunities to connect with my wife, to be creative, to rest, and to be present in the lives of others.

*I actually get really annoyed with this argument of proving that something ought to have happened. Because a lot of other things didn't happen or could have happened in my life. And if that was the case, if my story had been different, would I be any less of a person? Wouldn't I have had some other experience that would have shaped me differently? You can't take away an experience from somebody and leave them with nothing; a river doesn't stop being a river if you take a stone out of its bed.