AuburnChick's Adventures

Last night marked four days of my endeavor to give up TV during Lent.

I’ve gotta tell you that fasting from a non-food item is just as difficult as giving up something like sugar or junk food.

I never realized how quiet the house is when the TV is turned off.

My daily routine used to encompass working until 3:30, watching DOOL for 45 minutes, and then hunkering down to work on certification assignments WHILE listening to the TV in the background.

This week, I have been going home, visiting with Chicky (home for Spring Break), and then hunkering down to work on lesson plans and my assignments.

There.

Is.

No.

TV.

There.

Are.

No.

Extra.

Sounds.

A couple of days ago, it was so silent that the only thing I heard was the sound of my fingers tapping away at my keyboard and the deep laugh of my sweet Rooster as he played Xbox Live in another room.

That.

Was.

All.

I have been playing music though.  I love listening to Chris Tomlin Radio on Last.fm.

Still, though, the music is not a replacement for the TV.

What has been even stranger than the lack of noise is the depressed feeling I have.

I feel like the house is a little darker without the bright images being emitted from the television.

Time seems to crawl by.  Let’s face it folks.  We live our lives in segments – in blocks predetermined by the length of our activities.  In my case, my evenings were divided into one or two-hour chunks.

Last night, after working all afternoon on assignments, I glanced at the clock, expecting the time to read 8pm.

It was 6:00.

I kid you not.

I’ve been working at my dining room table lately; however, I moved to the couch, which is in front of the TV, later in the evening.

It was a strange feeling.  I looked at my DVR, and I could see that it was recording something (preset, of course)…

I felt like I was being taunted.

The Mr. walked through, and I made a comment about how tired I was.

He told me I should go to bed early.  He also suggested that my body probably thought it was time for bed because usually, when I turn off the TV, my body takes it as a signal that it’s bedtime.

Good observation.

Probably true as well.

People are conditioned to respond to certain stimuli.  Pavlov proved it with his salivating dog experiment.

I think that the television serves as a stimulant to my body.  It keeps me awake.   I guess that’s why child “experts” suggest that children do not watch television a certain length of time before going to bed.

Who knew that the experts might actually know something.  😉

What I am already coming to realize is that television is almost like a drug.  Certain shows lead us to have certain feelings.  We watch advertisements for things we don’t need and think, all of a sudden, that we need those things.

And so we depend on the TV to help us be who we are, so to speak.

God does not want that of us. 

Nothing should define who we are except for HIM.

It’s no wonder that we wander around lost and confused.

We have too many voices playing in the background of our lives when, in reality, we need to be listening to only ONE voice…the voice that won’t make promises He can’t keep (unlike infomercials for anti-wrinkle cream).

I am praying that the quiet time that I will be having over the course of Lent will help me train myself to purposefully tune out the noises around me so that I can hear God’s voice in a very clear, audible way.

Filed under: Christian | Tagged: Christianity, fasting, Lent, TV |