the Truth is the escape...

yesterday, the associated press (ap) tweeted that box office ticket sales have reached their lowest point in over 16 years! that's a statistic that just confounds me!

i know several factors have contributed to the decline in ticket sales such as easier access to free media sources like hulu, new developments in technology which make the individual the 'star,' astronomical rates of unemployment, rising cost of staple goods, less disposable income, and so on. but the fact remains that entertainment has always been seen as the escape from reality.

during the great depression, scores of people who didn't have two nickels to rub together would often scrape together what they could to buy a ticket to watch motion pictures depicting a glittery past or forecasting a prosperous future... in war-torn countries, people flock to movie houses which show imported films laden with movie stars in far-off exotic lands adorned with the glitz and glam of fast cars, cutting-edge fashion and modern music. entertainment has been the tonic which temporarily cures us from reality.

what a telling sign of our modern culture that even escaping from reality through entertainment isn't doing the trick anymore. the excess of fancy cars, sex, drugs and rock & roll portrayed on the big screen can't divert our attention away from the millions of people losing their homes every day in suburban america. we can't turn away anymore from the homeless men and women who rattle change in styrofoam cups at crowded intersections. we can no longer ignore the buzz-word of the "unemployed" because our own friends and family members now find themselves without jobs. and there's an anxiety playing out in the political fracas of red vs. blue and left vs. right that just doesn't seem to be getting any better before next year's presidential election.

if not through the time-honored practice of escaping through entertainment, how do we escape from reality these days?

several years ago, God asked me to turn off my tv and follow Him on a path to discovering who i am and what i'm supposed to do with my life... at the time, i was a hot mess in all areas of my life. i was reeling from the heartbreak of my first serious relationship and didn't know how to handle it. so i threw myself into the bar scene to get away from the heartache--i tried to numb my natural feelings with an artificial remedy of alcohol. as a recent college grad, i was struggling to find my place somewhere between being a know-nothing kid and a know-it-all adult. my professional life had become a delicate balancing act between being an advocate in education and being the lowest girl on the totem pole of inter-office politics. and i was learning from the school of hard knocks how to be fiscally responsible with my new, grownup paycheck.

i didn't react well to the changes and i often found myself retreating into the imaginary realm of entertainment. many, many times after getting home from a long day at work i'd plop down on the couch, turn on the tv and vegg out by watching whatever sitcom or celebrity gossip show was on. i'd tell myself, "i'll just watch for a little bit to decompress from my day," but day after day i'd sit down to watch tv for just a second and before i knew it, HOURS had passed since i first sat down. literal hours had ticked away while i consumed what was on tv.

i knew that something was wrong with how easily i could get sucked in to watching what quite honestly was not worth my time... i can't even begin to appreciate what goes on behind the camera (like wardrobe, makeup, lighting or script-writing) but the most amazing technical aspects of a show can't make up for crappy content. for days on end i sat and watched shows which centered around cheating spouses, sexually active teenagers and other blatant attacks on the family.

at some point i snapped and got the message that sitting for hours in front of the tv was not doing me any good. in fact, i realized that it was actually keeping me from feeling what i needed to feel. i needed to register the pain of that heartbreak in the deepest recesses of my heart, i needed that transition time from college student to grownup to come to the awareness that balance and order are good things, i needed my job situation to remind me to stand firm in the ethical and moral standards i had long since set for myself, and i needed some financial mistakes to re-set me on the path towards independence.

God started working on changing my routine by asking me to turn off the tv--and surprise, surprise--this time i actually listened. i bought a journal and started recording my conversations with God. i wrote as He dictated this beautiful plan for getting me out of the mess i had made of my own life. i collected suggestions for spiritual reading and began knocking out some of the most amazing books i've read in my life. one byproduct of all the reading i've done in the few years past is that i discovered my imagination still works--woohoo! i found a spiritual director and found that elusive 'objective' perspective that so many of us desperately need and can't find in our friends or family.

probably the best thing i discovered (or re-discovered, i suppose) was the art of conversation. there is something so invigorating in getting to know a person by uncovering who they are, layer by layer, over a period of time. if you just want to know information, asking a simple yes/no question would do, but in a good conversation you get so much more than information... you get a person's story. you see what values that person holds dear, what experiences shaped them, which people were influential in their life, and so on.

a good conversation is a beautiful exchange of trust.

this morning i had coffee with four young women from my parish's young adults group and it was exactly what i needed! we were so lost in conversation that 3 hours passed like mere minutes and before any of us realized, it was time for noon Mass. we hadn't planned to be at coffee long enough to go to Mass together, but each of us had individual plans of going to daily Mass on her own. the Holy Spirit led us in conversation and getting to know one another so that all the conditions came together perfectly and we went to Mass as a little family. on this Feast of the Holy Family, that moment of clarity showed me that Christ binds all of us together in the Church as one big, happy, universal family. uh-mazing!

i got to thinking about all the blessings in my life that i never would have realized had i not been through that dumb heartache in the first place. i've experienced things i never could have even imagined because those many painful situations were what opened me up to trusting that God would not only meet but exceed my every need.

that brings me back to the point of this blog post--don't be so quick to substitute something else for the reality of your situation, even though you might think it's bad. God has a purpose for the suffering you are going through. as sure as the night turns to day, your sadness will turn into joy. take the time, as difficult as it may be to do so, to register what you're feeling and just sit with it. ask God what you should do with what you're feeling. and listen to Him when He gives you direction.

you'll see, just as i have, that the Truth is actually the 'escape' from reality.

pax et bonum,
crystal