It Really is About the Content You Keep

We live in a culture drowning in sound and pictures. We are inundated with advertisements and pleas to buy this thing or that experience. Based on the false premise that it will change our life, or allow us to keep up with the Joneses or the Kardashians.

We turn on or still read newstainment that sells fear and divisiveness. Telling us who are our enemies and how we should behave and think. Feeling superior and full of false virtue simply because of our political choices. Parroting pundits without any real examination of facts and motive. Hint, follow the money and it will always lead you to motive.

Because we live in a deeply materialistic culture, we ignore past spiritual wisdom or even parental guidance about the company we keep. We know what’s best; not father or mother or even God. Ignoring the advice of those who love us unconditionally. Choosing blind pride as opposed to clear-eyed humility.

Like the company we keep, the content that we consume sways not only our heads but also our hearts. A proverbial insight from Proverbs. A perceptive insight from Aesop. A profound insight from my spiritual awakening.

My spiritual awakening causing me to reassess everything about my life, including the stuff I read, watch and listen to both consciously and unconsciously. Knowing that my senses are always sensing. Background noise is still noise nudged into my head.  

Like my approach to humor, I’m now deliberate about the content I consume. Asking myself, does it inspire me? Does it make me think more deeply? Does it expand my knowledge of the world? Does it help me “walk” in another person’s shoes? Does it help me create more love in the world?

Knowing I cannot nurture a Love centered life scrolling through social media posts that are only about fear and judgement of other humans. I cannot nurture a Love centered life listening to music or watching videos that reduces us to objects. I cannot nurture a Love centered life completely cut off from the natural world. I cannot nurture a Love centered life believing the lies of a ruling class that creates human suffering at home and across the globe while declaring their false superiority.

Instead of turning into our culture, I find myself tuning out. A self-evident understanding understood by Biblical prophets and anyone spiritually awake. People who believe that we are spiritual as well as physical creatures. Humans who believe that we are images of the Divine. Unconditionally loved and redeemed only by the grace of God.

Because we live in the most materialistic culture in the history of the world, our souls are famished even while we dismiss the notion of the Spirit. It’s not just TV that’s become a wasteland but everything under heaven. Print, picture and sound.

Providentially, there is plenty of past and current content that can nourish our soul. That can make us more humane humans. Pointing us to a path of creating more love in the world.

It’s almost never coming from celebrities or social influencers or mainstream media. Their success is built on fear, false pride, judgement of others, and a world view that diminishes our humanity. Reducing people to consumers or objects of gratification or subjectification.  

Spiritually awake I’ve rediscovered great literature and writers that meet my criteria above including the Bible. I listen to music that’s heartbreaking and hopeful but always about the whole human experience. I watch stories that make me want to create more love in the world.

I also turn everything off and go outdoors. Watching that one of a kind sunset or gazing up at the stars above like my ancestors did before we were distracted by a sideshow of darkness. Immersed in the content of a quiet night, under a canopy of twinkling lights, I find myself commingled in God’s love. My soul and my senses at peace knowing my purpose.