| | I have not sat down to watch a movie in over a year. Sure, I’ve seen bits and snatches of things here and there, and there was that one Christian film we showed at a retreat, but I’m just finishing a year-long movie fast.
At first, when my brother suggested such a preposterous idea, I wasn’t even sure it could be done. Is that even healthy? But as I thought about it, I realized that it was something I would like to do with him, and even more, something I’d like to say that I had done! I had a couple of concerns going into the fast: I work with young people, will this make me culturally irrelevant? Will this make me a social burden to my friends? Bourne Ultimatum is coming out this year! They seemed pretty small in the scheme of things, so thrusting them aside, in I dove.
I actually gave myself a caveat so that if, after three months, I felt like the fast was hindering my ministry in any way, I could be done with a clear conscience. The first three months of the fast flew by in a flurry of activity such that there would not have been time to watch something even without the fast. When I paused to consider the road I was walking, I found that there was no indication of hindrance to my ministry, so onward I plunged.
Time was one of the first benefits I noticed about this fast. As I am now able to look back over the whole year, I don’t know when I would have had time to watch very many movies. Suppose one was to watch one 2-hour film a week. Over the course of a year, that is more than 100 hours of film-watching. I am honestly not sure where I could stuff two and a half work-weeks of movies in the past year.
Another thing that I began to notice was that movies are not as important as I thought they were. I was genuinely afraid that I might lose touch with people because I would not have seen the things they had seen. And yes, it happened, I would be in a conversation where someone would say, “Have you seen _____?” I’d say no. We’d move on. It was amazing…
More surprising to me was the realization of how many movies people haven’t seen. I grew up in a pretty conservative movie-watching environment, meaning that out of a group of my friends, I was the one who probably did not see whatever it was. However, I realized that my presumption that everyone saw most everything was completely false. Though they get around, movies really are not as all pervasive of society as I thought.
There were times when the fast got long—It’s another how many years ‘til I’m done? But really things moved along rather quickly. The times when I wanted to watch a movie the most were when I really did feel like the social inhibitor for a group of friends. They were good though, and understanding, but usually not jealous. Yes, I did get left out of a few movie events, but more often than not we found something else to do and were better off for it. In fact, I escaped from Hercules and Power Rangers several times due to my convenient movie fast!
Today I find myself thinking more, deeper, and better than I was a year ago. I cannot in good conscience attribute that solely to a movie fast, but I am sure it has played its part. In addition to completely fasting from this source of entertainment, I have also sought to deliberately slow down my life, and not fill every moment of every day with busyness, entertainment, or obligation. Sometimes I just let life be empty, and that’s OK. It took a while, months actually, to flush the rush of disjointed thoughts that would flood my mind whenever I stopped, but after a while I started to think, well… better. I like that.
I will admit that I am excited to watch movies again. I miss stories, good stories, that invite you to experience life with the characters and that you can think about long and hard afterwards. I do miss being able to veg after a long week or as a cure for jet lag. And yes, I am excited about going out to a movie with my friends again.
I do not regret my year-long movie fast. Not even a little bit. Up next: a year-long fast from the internet! Ok... maybe not...
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| | Posted 3/10/2008 11:04 AM - 254 Views - 12 eProps - 7 comments
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