For the sake of a reader, I have selected this from one of the posts on entertainment:
I have shared on this blog the great insight of Thomas Merton on the
biggest danger of television-that the passivity which one approaches tv
is the aspect, the gift of the mind and soul for passive prayer. The
television takes over this part of the human soul and mind and perverts
the natural course of learning to be passive in the Presence of God.
"I
am certainly no judge of television, since I have never watched it. All
I know is that there is a sufficiently general agreement, among men
whose judgment I respect, that commercial television is degraded,
meretricious and absurd. Certainly it would seem that TV could become a
kind of unnatural surrogate for contemplation: a completely inert
subjection to vulgar images, a descent to a sub-natural passivity rather
than an ascent to a supremely active passivity in understanding and
love. It would seem that television should be used with extreme care and
discrimination by anyone who might hope to take interior life
seriously." (86) Seeds of Contemplation
Think
of this--that the capacity for contemplation, the capacity which God
created in each person for an intimate relationship with Him, has been
perverted by television and other passive forms of entertainment.
God created us for Himself, and we must protect our imaginations, minds,
souls, bodies from the pollution of false ideals which flood into us
through all types of entertainment.
