Do you ever find yourself in that position? Trying to defend yourself against the onslaught of activities competing for your time? This week, I read my students a story called the Big Rocks of Life - http://www.appleseeds.org/Big-Rocks_Covey.htm The main idea is to question what are the things that are truly important and that you must insure are a part of your life. If you don't make time for the big rocks, the gravel, sand, and water will come fill in the cracks leaving no room for what really matters.
So I tell my class this story, and then I was trying to get them to talk about their big rocks. Ok, they're just 13 and 14 so I'm not expecting any serious self-analysis; I was glad just to get them to say family is very important. What did make me sad though was that right up there with family were things like TV, cell phone, and internet. I tried to give them a second chance- "Really, guys? Isn't internet more of a little rock? Something that you use to fill your time?"
But They responded quite fervently, "No, Teacher! Internet is a Big Rock!!"
Wow, in my head, I just thought, "Well this is sad." Sure, they're young, so they don't think so much for themselves, but they're getting taught these values somewhere, they could be taught differently.
I was talking to Gui about that class over a candlelit dinner Wednesday. How romantic! Well, also the power was out when we got home. That's pretty standard here. :P We were talking about how Satan in really smart, you gotta give him that. He uses entertainment to distract us from life, to make us numb to the pain all around us, the injustice, the sin, the destruction, ultimately our need for Jesus. All these devices that people are letting their lives revolve around, are leading them to a slow, meaningless death. Worse, as Gui pointed out, it's a whole cycle. The kids want the X Box, to newest cell, the trip to Disney (here that's a HUGE deal to go to Disney), and then their parents have to work their tails off spending next to no time together as a family to be able to keep their kids, and their own cravings for entertainment satisfied. We are enslaved to our own desires!
Reminds me of a passage I read in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, describing how slaveholders would craftily reward their slaves with freedom at the end of the year and encourage the abuse of that freedom so as to convince slaves that freedom was in fact a bad thing, and they were better off being slaves.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (Ch. 10)
The days between Christmas and New Year's day are allowed as holidays; and, accordingly, we were not required to perform any labor, more than to feed and take care of the stock. This time we regarded as our own, by the grace of our masters; and we therefore used or abused it nearly as we pleased. Those of us who had families at a distance, were generally allowed to spend the whole six days in their society. This time, however, was spent in various ways. The staid, sober, thinking and industrious ones of our number would employ themselves in making corn-brooms, mats, horse-collars, and baskets; and another class of us would spend the time in hunting opossums, hares, and coons. But by far the larger part engaged in such sports and merriments as playing ball, wrestling, running foot-races, fiddling, dancing, and drinking whisky; and this latter mode of spending the time was by far the most agreeable to the feelings of our masters. A slave who would work during the holidays was considered by our masters as scarcely deserving them. He was regarded as one who rejected the favor of his master. It was deemed a disgrace not to get drunk at Christmas; and he was regarded as lazy indeed, who had not provided himself with the necessary means, during the year, to get whisky enough to last him through Christmas.From what I know of the effect of these holidays upon the slave, I believe them to be among the most effective means in the hands of the slaveholder in keeping down the spirit of insurrection. Were the slaveholders at once to abandon this practice, I have not the slightest doubt it would lead to an immediate insurrection among the slaves. These holidays serve as conductors, or safety-valves, to carry off the rebellious spirit of enslaved humanity. But for these, the slave would be forced up to the wildest desperation; and woe betide the slaveholder, the day he ventures to remove or hinder the operation of those conductors! I warn him that, in such an event, a spirit will go forth in their midst, more to be dreaded than the most appalling earthquake.
The holidays are part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrong, and inhumanity of slavery. They are professedly a custom established by the benevolence of the slaveholders; but I undertake to say, it is the result of selfishness, and one of the grossest frauds committed upon the down-trodden slave. They do not give the slaves this time because they would not like to have their work during its continuance, but because they know it would be unsafe to deprive them of it. This will be seen by the fact, that the slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those days just in such a manner as to make them as glad of their ending as of their beginning. Their object seems to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the lowest depths of dissipation. For instance, the slaveholders not only like to see the slave drink of his own accord, but will adopt various plans to make him drunk. One plan is, to make bets on their slaves, as to who can drink the most whiskey without getting drunk; and in this way they succeed in getting whole multitudes to drink to excess. Thus, when the slave asks for virtuous freedom, the cunning slaveholder, knowing his ignorance, cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation, artfully labeled with the name of liberty. The most of us used to drink it down, and the result was just what might be supposed; many of us were led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum. So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the field,--feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery.
I have said that this mode of treatment is a part of the whole system of fraud and inhumanity of slavery. It is so. The mode here adopted to disgust the slave with freedom, by allowing him to see only the abuse of it, is carried out in other things.
Entertainment, as this story shows, can be a form of control. I'm not just attacking technological devices, but anything that is used to distract us from the truth- TV, alcohol, partying, self-absorption in all it's forms, etc. The thing is, we don't have to remain slaves. But we need help; we can't break free on our own, as I find out more and more how weak I really am, how little self-control I can muster.
Galatians 4:8-9 (New International Version)
8Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?
Something I like in this passage is how it corrects itself, "Now that you know God, -or rather are known by Him." We're so self-orientated, self-aware, self-you-name-it. The other day I was talking to Mom about how after a year, I really feel that I'm a part of the community because I know the neighbors across the street, and the lady who gives me bread at the bakery, and all my friends at school. Without hesitation, in a wisdom gained with time, she observed, "You mean, they finally know you. " I guess, in my perception of things, just as with God, I'm always thinking it's my job, and I have to do all the work to get to know Him. But I have to realize that He already knows me so much better than I know myself.
Who am I kidding? I gotta confess that I really haven't been seeking God. I had been getting really bummed about my lack of discipline, when I stopped being hard on myself long enough to let an important idea seep in- God has been seeking me the whole time. He's the one who's been pushing for a relationship long before I ever wanted one. And there are still so many days, I can come up with a list of good excuses not to give Him any attention at all. It's about time I really started being modest and humble enough to realize that really, really, really, it is not be anything I do that I am saved. I am saved by grace, and by His grace alone can I come to know Him.
So those are some thoughts for you on a sleepy Friday afternoon. Time to go feed the puppy- little, skinny thing.
