And Let It Begin With Me

I saw something on the way home from class tonight that nearly made me cry. I was driving (almost as fast a a baby crawling) down University Ave. when something about the car in the next lane caught my eye. As I turned my head to see what it was, I saw a woman driving a car and on the back of each front-seat head rest were television screens; each showing a different program. I couldn't see who was in the back seats, but I can only imagine that there were at least two children who depend on this woman for guidance in this world.

My heart broke for those children. Gone are the days when you drive by a car with an adult and one or more children moving with delight as you see they are all obviously singing the words to a fun family song. That's how my car rides always were growing up. We even got to the point where we'd begin to make up harmony for 99 bottles of milk on the wall - Yes, 'milk' because we are members of the LDS Church and don't drink beer, or any alcoholic beverage for that matter. We would also play the alphabet game and draw on those cool pink plastic pads that you just lift up the top layer to 'erase' the picture and start again. I even remember making with my mom and G'ma (and later selling at school) flannel board kits for car rides and a quiet-time activity.

What a horrible thing technology can be. We get so used to having so much noise and visual stimulation set before us all the time (even in the car, apparently) that children don't learn what it is to use one's imagination and adults forget what that is. They become mimics of the virtual technology in which we submerge them. I can't blame them; after all, over exposure to anything inevitably has its effects on the human brain. . . and spirit; the soul of man.

We hear so much talk of people who wish the President would finally put a stop to the wars going on overseas and that everyone could just get along, but what is each of us doing to help rid the world of wars and rumors of wars? We fill our lives with too much man-made, technological stimulus that we become desensitized to reality (and that's not those shows you see on TV labeled "reality tv"). We create never ending commotion in our lives and the lives of each of our family members and then wonder why we can't feel at peace.

I'll tell you that there's nothing on the face of this planet that can offer you true and lasting peace except what is given to man by God. If we always have to have the radio on or the TV going or the cell phone vibrating at our side, how will we ever have the sensibility to feel the promptings of that Being who created us? How will we be able to hear Him or see His hand in our lives? I say take time to turn off the radio; don't go straight for the TV when you get home from work; open the eyes of your understanding and awake from the living death in which too many of us exist.

'Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.'