Our minds, our imaginations, are powerful aspects of our selves and our potential! It is at this level of our imaginations that modern media tries to win us over.
When we are watching a movie or a television show, we are seeing exactly what the director wants us to see. Lighting, sound, set and camera angles all seek to draw us into the scene. When the camera shifts and we “see” the scene through the perspective of a character in the story, we become that character. We are doing what it is that character is doing. We are, in our imagination, experiencing what that character is experiencing.
Video games and movies and television shows now come with ratings. Such ratings play on our mind and stirs reaction. We would do well to pay attention to those ratings.
Consider these
if children spend their most formative years shooting and zapping and destroying people on video games, it can’t help but affect how they see the world.
if men, once the rest of the family has gone to bed, sit in the dark watching television content that isn’t appropriate for the rest of the family, it can’t help but negatively affect them, their wives and their families.
Let us pay very close attention to what we let inside our minds. The world has become more ingenuous at cutting through and getting into our lives with messages and images that are ultimately harmful to us. Let us ask God to work in us, correcting our consciences, keeping us mindful and leading us to what is good and right and helpful.
Matthew 5 : 27 - 30
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
(0682 22VIII2008)