57 Channels (And Nothin' On)

Another reason I haven’t blogged much, especially the past week - Television. After six years, I now have a TV, and I got cable TV July 3rd. Needless to say, I’ve become enthralled with the moving pictures and voices in the big black box. Not that I’m becoming a better person for this, quite the contrary. I’m only watching reruns of Ally McBeal and CSI. I could choose from any number of US reruns to commandeer my free time – from Scrubs to Frasier to Simpsons to every CSI and Law & Order to Ally McBeal to Friends to Sex and the City and so forth. And that’s just the shows I recognize. Of course, there’s all the British stuff (but honestly, I haven’t been that enthralled with what I’ve seen). I have discovered that when you watch one or two episodes of a show every night, you start to realize just how formulaic each series is. When they’re only one once per week, you don’t quite notice it.

I do get TCM and TCM2 (it seems most channels here have a “2” – meaning if you missed a show, no worries, it’ll be on an hour later). Last night I watched the Cole Porter musical “High Society” (1956) with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, and Louis Armstrong on music. It was good – at least something different.

The ironic part about having a TV and cable is that on Monday, July 7th, the daily devotional from the United Church of Christ (UCC) happened to be written by Quinn Caldwell, the Associate Pastor at Old South – and it was about TV. Using Romans 1:18-23, he wrote:

“Have you ever waited all week long for the next episode of your favorite TV show, your excitement building day by day until finally, heart going pitter-pat, you sit down to see what will happen next? Ever felt that way about church? ...

“Look, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty here; I think most of us are like this. But it's a legitimate question. Why don't most of us--even the churchgoers--get as excited about God as we do about Carrie Bradshaw?

“At least some of the time, the problem is with the church, maybe more than any of us wants to admit. But I think the real issue is this: TV seeks to give us exactly what we want, when we want it, and so elicits an excitement and devotion that almost nothing else can…

“God, on the other hand, seeks our devotion not by giving us what we want, but what we need: redemption, repentance, salvation. Which, God forgive us, is less riveting than The Wire, and significantly less funny than The Simpsons.

“Don't get me wrong; there's nothing wrong with watching TV. It's just that it's nowhere near as right as worshiping God.”

Amen!