I've been really amazed by the effect that giving up TV for lent has had on the following weeks. There is really very little now that I'm prepared to watch, and I only turn it on if I actually want to watch something, rather than just when I'm in that room.
Programmes that I've previously watched, just aren't watchable anymore, whether it's that the content is too extreme (from comments on FB from others, I don't think I'm the only person not watching Silent Witness anymore), or it just seems pretty pointless.
And yet, I'm discovering some really amazing things on TV that previously I wouldn't have given any time to. This week when I did the ironing on Friday night, I watched the BBC Young Musician of the Year, Woodwind Final. Sadly I turned on too late for the first competitor - the recorder, but heard some amazing music on the saxaphone, clarinet, bassoon & flute. I couldn't believe it at the end when the recorder won, and I hadn't watched it, so I then saw it on iPlayer. She was amazing!
Links below - honestly, I'd be amazed if you didn't like the last short piece at least!
The last short piece, which is totally captivating
Why didn't we get to play stuff like that at school?
And recently I've also learnt lots about the 'Cold Chain' with Ewan McGregor, showing how even children in the most unconneted parts of the world are receiving vaccines.
I'm not sure why I'd never have watched these kinds of programmes before, but I get some entertainment and learn new things, which are actually real, rather than based on imagined fear and violence.
I was really challenged when I started watching TV again by Phillipians 4:8
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.And I'm not sure where the thought started, but it seems to be the test by which I start and continue to watch the few things that I do nowadays. Certainly not what I was expecting the result of a TV fast to be, when I started back on Ash Wednesday!
