Distraction

    I came home from work, took off my jacket and coat, dropped them, and fell into bed. I crawled out at some point to heat up chili, then came back down and sat again.
    I've found out why TV is so addicting to people who are sick. It is a distraction, a lifting of reality. You know how reality is when I am sick? It is discomforting, nauseous, tedious, monotonous, very, very slow, where every irritation is unjust and every discomfort makes me a martyr. Add self-loathing of my heart, mind, and spirit at the moment, and it's a lovely picture, isn't it? But it did give me some insight into other lives.
    My Mama, so often sick, comes home and night after night turns on the TV. It irritates me, for I can get so easily caught up in the story-lines, true, but I wished she would find some other amusement--TV can be so harmful, and has unpleasant stereotypes associated with it. Some, even a great deal, if you are sick, is understandable...but night after night?
    But there is something about TV that nothing except a good book can offer, and books have words that dance off the page or letters that move around as fevers increase. TV offers an escape. Remember my heart, mind, spirit, and body when I am sick? Remember your discomfort when you are sick? TV takes that away. It is not reality, it is not just that it is exciting, distracting, colorful, and impossible to ignore. It is a means of escaping pain or discomfort. Not just a partial escape, a temporary lifting. Hours, yes, hours, where reality is suspended by a captivating world, a world that I can chose. I came home and watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. It is now nearly bedtime; I feel I just got home.
     I go to bed soon, and I struggled, oh how I struggled through the workday. I had to stay till the first meeting, because I needed to know what was being said there. I had a project that had to get done today, that was the deadline. Near the time that was finished, I got another, and it was new, something I had not done before--I could make it entertaining. Then there was the second meeting, that broke up the afternoon, that had laughter in it. That last half hour, that was so hard. I was tempted so many times to just get up and leave. Work on this, work on this, just a few minutes more, my discipline was reduced to pleading. A few minutes more. Time flew when I got home, when I turned on a movie. Entertainment on a screen, a story that weaves with color, sound, movement, tension, interest, excitement, and my reality falls away.
    An ironic time to be studying truth.
    But I am, in my devotions. And I remember that I am to study what is true, what is noble, what is good and righteous and pure. God, if escape is so easy, can I find in it elements of things to think on? If reality is so taxing, cannot entertainment provide rest?
    But teach, please my God, teach me when distraction becomes temptation, when movies become addictions, when rest becomes escape. Teach me when this is no longer good, and to enjoy the good, and turn from the evil. In the name of Christ, amen.