Amusing ourselves to death!

Where is the great apostasy? What is the idolatry of our time? How is the Dark Lord keeping us from knowing who we are and serving and glorifying the One True God? How can he keep us from health? How can he divert us from serving each other and helping each other glorify God in Christ, becoming His saints? Where is our ancient foe? Oh, he’s here. He’s successfully gotten us to substitute his agenda for our Father’s. He keeps us busy amusing ourselves … to death!

Jholder knows this. Fr. Neo knows this. I know this. You know this. We know he is so good at tricking us that we forget he is even doing it, lost in the moment. Occasionally, though, we are given moments of clarity and then of horror at what he is doing. We suddenly see the success of his work around us, usually after indulging the Dark Lord willingly and fully. Anakin, as he disappears into the Dark side says, just before he perishes, “My God, What have I done?” Like him, we despair and know our sinfulness; our prison walls reveal themselves briefly. We then try to throw off the portals of his influence on us. We throw out the TV, or frighten our family by making aggressive moves to do so. We attempt to turn back the incessant hungers, yearnings. We try to repair our vision, substitute prayer, cling to the cross. We realize…again…that we seem to be trapped, surrounded by walls of seductive sensations that we have substituted for the real life planned for us and offered to us in Christ.

Who watches too much TV? Reads too many books? Attends to too much “news”? Putters too much in make-work, buffing and cleaning and repairing our prison cell? Who loses hours in meaningless leisure? Pointless work? Valueless diversion? Futile worry? Who isolates himself from those he should serve in Christ? Who wastes his life in amusement? Who accepts an isolated, virtual, sense-bondage life, renouncing a real one?

This morning it is clear. I remember yesterday’s channel flipping in my room, strolling through the mall at Channelside in Tampa looking at the people seeking, chasing amusement, spending money and time on…what? Nothing of value, except by the grace of God. Who has been seduced by the Dark Side. I have. Who has been turned away from life in Christ, accepting a false substitute? I have. Who has abandoned Christ? I have. Who is a servant of the Dark Lord? I am. Who has abandoned the Lord of Light? Who crucifies Christ, again and again and again? I do. God help me. I do. It is no consolation that I am not alone in doing so. It is God’s grace and the light of His love that let me see this. Father forgive me. In your Sabbath light, let me remember you and your sacrifice to save me, showing me the way through this darkness to you.