We've gotten home from a vacation from retirement. Spent three weeks in our former home in Oscoda, Michigan which now belongs to our daughter who lives in Virginia. Needless to say, the house has sat idle for quite some time. We spent quite a bit of time painting, trimming shrubbery, repairing, and replacing. The picture below may tell some of the story.
But I learned something else in the process. We had no TV service in the house. If I wanted to check e-mail or on-line banking I had to go somewhere that had a computer I could use since I had not brought my laptop with me. The Kindle son Jeff gave me gave some access to e-mail but I still needed a WiFi connection. I found, to my surprise, that life's stress levels went way down without television. I was reminded of the time, many years ago, when we had no electricity and there was little access to the outside world apart from personal contact. No soap operas - no mysteries - no 15 minute kid shows like Tom Mix or Jack Armstrong - and most of all, no news of any kind other than the weekly paper with all its gossip columns.
I found, in my three weeks in Michigan, that there was less stress, and more communication, and it was good.
When we got back and had all our modern systems available again that the stress level went back up again. Political stuff was filling the airwaves. Commercials were still as monotonous as ever. And the news was just as bad as ever. Then we became involved in the horror of the movie theater massacre.
For all the good TV has produced, it seems to me that the stresses and tensions of today's world that TV offers isn't always worth the time spent watching. Perhaps the same can be said for movies, and even music in today's world. I think at times I could easily and happily slip back into a life like when we had no electricity, no radio, no TV, but we had family communication. Alas, as one of our sons once said (and it is true), we live in a different world - and we have to live with progress and its products. But it is good once in a while to be put in a situation where God's quiet still rules.
