A Good Change

Cruising around this morning I found this article. I learned SO MUCH about something that I've been failing at. I was strongly impressed that our family needs to MAKE A CHANGE. After reading that article, we will no longer allow this harmful influence to dull our spiritual sensitivity. I was particularly struck by these points:

"The Spirit will not inhabit a polluted temple."

"We must recognize... and take responsibility for our choices." -(Ouch. Responsibility for choices is something I do my best to take very seriously.)

Maybe the most important part for me was the article's emphasis on the dulling impacts of violent entertainment on our senses, (spiritually speaking). I can remember some very distinct moments in my life of feeling wounded by violent images from movies, and by harsh, dark music. I remember being very aware that some good part of me had died, and trying to get the courage to stop the source. I'll admit, in recent years there have been a couple times I've seen one of my kids experience that spiritual pummeling from tv or movies. This article made me face that I have failed to adequately protect my family. I should be preventing these things, and when they have happened I should have talked to the boys and taught them why it was beneath our standards to watch that junk! So we're going to sit down as a family and talk about violence and what it does. I think it would be good to go through our dvd's as a family and decide what to throw away. Guess we'll have to talk about the difference between the lessons/ history taught from our scripture story movies, verses shows that use violence for entertainment. Also this seems like a perfect opportunity to discuss our other standards of what we watch/ listen to. "Uplifting and edifying" comes to mind.

So from now on there will be a heavier filter on what we bring into our home and minds. We've screened before, of course, but it will be good to make this conscious choice as a family. (We've never allowed video games so that's not an issue for us.) I feel really good about this! If you want to check out the article, see "It's 'Only' Violence," by Brad J. Bushman on lds.org, or copy this link:
http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=590b74536cf0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD