Tune Out…by Tuning In
When we decided to turn off the television for one week last year, at first it seemed like an eternity. We dithered through the house stone faced, with the silence of a mortuary filling the air. “So how was your day?”
“Not bad what about you?” I answered as my spouse and I began our experiment to “tune-out.” We looked forward to being without advertisements, negative news reporting, internet surfing and anything else that chips away at moments of peace and tranquility. We wanted more rest and quality time spent with God. We agreed to read our Bibles more too.
A couple of days into the quest, we wondered how we could continue to do without other “necessities” like gorging off snack foods and a feeding frenzy on each of our daily news shows. But manage we did, learning to welcome and appreciate the outside sounds of tree nesters and a low refrigerator hum indoors. After just a few days, easy chats and the solace found inside the pages of various books became the preferred pastime as well.
As the week wound down, we seemed to resemble modern day homesteaders from Little House on the Prairie (70’s television show) and we were proud to be accomplishing what we set out to do. In the process here’s a bit of what we discovered:
The time spent in electronic solitude had forced us to pay more attention not only to each other, but in our surroundings, our words, thoughts and actions. Our attention refocused on doing what was important rather than on diversions that steal away precious time. And we experienced how calming it is to not have a hundred other voices drown out our conversations along with “Huh? Say what? I’m on the on phone. Turn the T.V. down!” Sound familiar?
We’d also escaped having our emotions assaulted by sound bites of sinister and ungodly things we may never understand or resolve. Never once did we lose the remote control or sigh about not finding anything decent to watch. And guess what? It was all good. By tuning out, we’d learned to enjoy tuning in to peace. When we turned on the television once again, the world hadn’t exploded on itself. We hadn’t missed the funeral of anyone we loved, and there was still enough fresh air to breathe, clean water to drink and food to eat.
Seems the only things we did miss that week were worry, anxiety, busyness and forgetting to set out the popcorn.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27 NIV).
