Saltwater

As part of my Lenten journey I decided to give up TV. I'm not scrupulous. I catch pieces of programming my parents watch and take a break on Sundays, but mostly I leave the screen off each night in favor of reading, writing, surfing the internet, or taking up a project.

On Sunday, I took my break. I watched a couple episodes of The Office. Before Lent, I started watching the final season of the show. In college I had gotten into the story and characters, but I lost interest in later seasons and never finished. Since I am caught up on most of my favorites, I thought I would go back and cap The Office experience. It has moments of good humor, but I was disgusted by a raunchy, way-too-graphic conversation for network television in the episode I watched Sunday. Is this the best we can do for humor? Isn't cleaner comedy possible?

As much as I enjoy TV and get into storylines and characters, all the media I consume is unsatisfying. Families are imperfect, plots become contrived, personalities seem inauthentic.

Don't get me wrong. I love a good show. I watch more than I ought. Sometimes I want mindless entertainment. Heck, often I want mindless entertainment. Still, I have enjoyed the intentionality of my time during Lent being freer than usual of constant media consumption. I came up with an analogy that seems appropriate to my experience as I was driving home this week.

The endless waves of media surrounding my day--TV, radio, podcasts, newspaper, advertising, internet, on and on--form an ocean around me. I float atop my faith in Christ and His Church, relying on its sturdiness as my safeguard. Being exposed amid the open waves makes me thirsty, at times unquenchably thirsty. I am surrounded by water, and so I take a sip. It's not satisfying because it's saltwater; it just makes me thirstier, yet I can't stop drinking. I develop an appetite for it. The water seems to quench while actually having the opposite effect. No matter how much I drink, I can't shake the thirst.

I know what I need, and it's not saltwater. That's obvious. On a life raft in the ocean, you and I would know not to drink from the ocean surrounding us. Yet that's what we do all the time with our media-saturated lives. Where is the fresh water in your life and mine that actually satisfies?

In silence. Quiet. Reflection. Prayer. Pockets of sabbath in a whirlwind day. Connecting with the Lord. Being the beloved. Embracing the tension of the Kingdom come and coming.

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." -John 4:13-14