watching

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A Soap Opera Is Capturing The Highest TV Ratings

The other day I discovered that a TV soap opera was making a comeback in popularity.

A soap opera is capturing the highest TV ratings

It might seem a little crazy that I would know about this sort of thing but, to be really honest, there was a time when I was into soap operas. 

It goes back to when I was in high school. 

Getting right to homework after school was not hot on my list of things to do. I liked to unwind by lying on the couch, with a handful of freshly baked cookies, watching some late afternoon television. 

The cookies always took the most effort because my mom would bake them and then hide them. My mom had this, “I’m making cookies for you, but I don’t want you to eat them all” mentality.

The truth was that however long my mom spent baking cookies, my brother and I could erase any trace that they existed in a matter of minutes. 

With my cookies in hand, I’d flop on the couch and watch my favourite afternoon show, Perry Mason. Perry Mason was a defence lawyer who never lost a case..

But as TV stations will do from time to time, they changed the afternoon programming line-up and Perry Mason was taken off the air. 

I ended up watching (and, I might add, getting hooked on) a soap opera called …. da, da, da, da: The Edge ……. Of Night. 

The show was just called “The Edge of Night” but in the opening credits the announcer had this dramatic pause between “Edge” and “Of Night”.

It wasn’t like I watched the show for years and years, but I did watch it for a time. I made sure I was in front of that TV every afternoon; I wouldn’t miss it. The storyline had me all wrapped up, knew each and every character and cared about what was happening or going to happen to them. 

About a year later, the late afternoon programming times changed again. They began showing reruns of the Flintstones so I started watching that instead. 

But every once in a while I would turn on the Edge of Night. Months would go by without me watching, but I discovered that when I tuned in, I still knew what was going on. The characters were the same, the storyline hadn’t changed and even the drama between characters had progressed very little. 

It was like I never missed a show. I realized that, though I was hooked for a time on watching every day\, I could watch it on a very infrequent, unscheduled way and never miss out on what was happening. 

Recently I’ve been doing that with the TV news. The content is mostly the same, the storyline hasn’t changed in a year and a half and, just like on “The Edge ….. Of Night”, only every once in a while a real bombshell is reported.

I don’t have to watch the news more than weekly to stay on top of it. … It’s like a soap opera.

Here’s the thing: On the one hand, days and years seem to go by quickly, but on the other hand, the storyline of our lives seems to take forever to unfold. We can get so caught up in the steady, almost unchanging, story of our lives that we forget about how fast life is really moving. The big picture is that we have a short time to respond to Jesus Christ and live out a life of faith in Him. Don’t be lulled into thinking you have time for that later. Be sure you are living the right storyline now.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What changes do you need to make to your life? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Stop Staring!

We had dinner the other night in a restaurant that looked like a hunting cabin. I’m not much of a hunter – never been hunting, unless you count picking off barn swallows with a pellet gun when I was about twelve. I’m also not much of a fisherman. I have fished but I found it to be a bit of a snoozer for me.

moose

I took our kids fishing on vacation a couple of times when they were little. I had to carry their rods, put the worms on their hooks, untangle their lines when they got too close to each other, and take the fish off the hooks (that part didn’t happen much). It didn’t leave me much time to fish, and just about the time I got my line in the water they were ready to call it quits.

… So having dinner in this place didn’t necessarily make me feel like I was in a familiar place.

Don’t get me wrong, it was very comfortable. We sat in high wingback chairs like the kind you would find in someone’s living room. And all around were reminders that humans are at the top of the food chain.

There were stuffed animals everywhere you looked. These were not the fluffy kind you buy your kids at Toys R Us, but rather the dead kind you buy from the taxidermist.

I kind of wondered if you could order a meal by just pointing to an animal on the wall and grunting a bit. But when I looked at the menu, it didn’t offer any otter, but there was one on the wall!

The whole place was kind of rustic. There was a big old fireplace in the middle of the room and the walls looked like the inside of a log cabin which is what the outside of a log cabin looks like too. When we were shown to our table, I found myself sitting directly in front of the fireplace, above which was huge moose … not a whole moose, just a head.

This moose head came out from the wall a long way, and I couldn’t tell if he had a happy look on his face because he was friendly or because we all looked like a late night snack to him. Apparently, mooses (as I like to call them) are vegetarians so I guess he was glad to see us.

But still, it looked like he had an eye on me. Every time I looked up I saw old Bullwinkle gawking at me. I tried to avoid his stare but something about him commanded my attention.

One time, I said something funny to my wife and then looked at the moose to see if he also got it. He was still smiling so maybe he did. By the end of dinner, I was used to him watching me. I felt like we were buddies, even though he never said a word.

Still, I didn’t turn my back towards him till I got out the door. See ya next time, friend.

Here’s the thing: There is nowhere you can go where God is not present. There is nowhere you can be that He doesn’t see you. It should be comforting to know God is always there … unless you are somewhere you shouldn’t be, and then it should be unnerving.

That’s Life!
Paul

Question: How do you feel about knowing God sees you all the time? Leave your comment below.