one of my heroes is peter gabriel.  he’s got this tune, washing of the water, that is for the downtrodden and weary.  on so many levels it’s just a fantastic song.  but the next to last line is “in the washing of the water will you take it all away”.  i heard this guy, sy rogers, speak a few years ago.  he’s the first person i remember talking openly, unashamedly, about his past as a gay man on female hormones on a waiting list to have a sex change.  the thing is, it wasn’t the very gay details of his past that shocked me.  it wasn’t that he was talking about it in a church.  it was his candid way of revealing his brokenness that allowed me to see someone who was unafraid and completely confident in his identity in christ.

he talked about living in our world as it relates to sex, desires, advertising, etc. and that by just being out in the world we get dirty.  i don’t know, maybe the cleaner we are the dirtier we are capable of getting.  we see lots of stuff that isn’t right.  depravity.   this muck builds up.  he said he has to pray every day for christ to wash him clean and take the layer of filth away.  a perpetual renewing of the spirit.

which leads me to the point that we are called to live in the world but we don’t have to marinate in it.  check out the links section and get x3watch installed on the computers you have access to.  not enough of a deterrent?  cancel your internet service then.  it is better for you to pay a little more and buy locally than to get it on ebay while allowing your whole body to be thrown into the fiery pit.  (yes, that was supposed to be humorous.) seriously though, you have to decide what’s important.  through a series of events not entirely intended to leave my house tv-less, my house has become basically tv-less.  (i do have a 13″ tv that i won at project graduation in ‘93 that i can take out of the closet–duly stored because of its unsightly nature–if i really, really want to watch something.)  what i have noticed from this experience is that i feel like it’s allowing some of my wounds to heal.  sometimes we get some real healing and then don’t protect the tenderness that is exposed.  i don’t think we consciously realize the effects of daily bombardments of images and advertising that wear us down.  do i think it’s possible to overcome a porn addiction while having unchecked internet access and expanded cable tv?  i suppose anything’s possible, but damn, that’s the hard way to do it if you ask me.

well, to summarize, a simple, genuine prayer for cleansing from all the daily yuck that we are called to wade through goes a long way.  i don’t know how it works–especially since most of the time i’m not aware of what i’m absorbing.  but somehow, through this process i feel a little more me, a little more affirmed in my identity, and a little bit stronger.

p.s.  i took a bit of a hiatus from the door due to general life craziness with 2 kids 2 and under, trying to sell an 81 yr old house, build a house, provide for my family, and prepare for moving into a new office building.  but, i have also thought of several more posts for the blog–this one was just kind of to get the wheels turning again.  thanks for checking in; i hope in some way that this blog can help.  (and i’m not saying that if you throw away your computer and your tv everything will be great.  for example, without a computer you would not be able to participate in this blog.  just try to be smart about it.)

question:  is it worth it to ease this burden a bit by sacrificing tv and/or internet?

bonus question:  if you have x3watch, who do you send your reports to?  (please don’t use names–use descriptions like a friend, my spouse, my accountability partner–i shudder a bit at the terminology, etc.)  how is it working out for you?