Where Has All the Feeling Gone?

I see an alarming trend in my country. I predict that if the present trend continues, in not all too many years, Americans will be going through their daily paces with complete absence of emotion.

What would prompt me to make such a bold statement, you might ask? I have observed a phenomenon for several years now which has disturbed me to the very fiber of my being. Slowly, very gradually, as it is with most bad things that enter our lives, I have watched many people around me turn into little more than robots. Let me explain.

I think that the advent of "nasty t.v." Has had a lot to do with the dulling of American sensation. I can remember in the 70's when Hollywood began to sneak concepts, innuendo, and just downright filth into our living rooms. They did not do it all at once. We were coming off the decade of the 60's when America began taking its clothes off, and we pretty well finished the strip in the 70's. The same went with everything from married people sleeping in the same bed evolving into every type of perversion to now our present-day blatant approval of homosexuality. Where America used to be incensed if Desi and Lucy shared the same bed, though they were married on and off stage, now, two people of the same sex and not married (obviously) can share the "marriage bed."

My mom and I were having a conversation the other day. We were talking about television, and she asked me if I remembered watching "Three's Company?" I told her that I did. Here we were, a family of Christians, watching "Three's Company" and thinking nothing about it. We both asked each other the question, "What were we thinking?" Rhetorically, we obviously were neither thinking nor feeling. Thankfully, now, we have come to know that shows like that, with scanty attire, innuendo, and straight out references to sexuality and homosexuality are not going to be viewed in our homes.

Not too many years ago, I walked unannounced into a home of some Christians I knew. They were watching "The Simpsons." You know, the cartoon on Fox with Homer and Bart, etc.? At any rate, they informed me that it was their favorite program. Perfect example of desensitization. Bart Simpson is about the most obnoxious child to ever hit t.v. He is rude, arrogant, smart-mouthed, disrespectful (calls his own dad Homer) and just about every other derogatory label you could think of. These people would smack their own kids "upside the head" if they even thought of acting any of these ways. Yet, they sat around as a family and enjoyed the show. I've seen enough clips of the show to know that it can be funny in spots. But I also saw enough of the show to know that it was something we were not going to watch in our house. I am not trying to be self-righteous here. I guess I am just shocked that Christians could pick out a show like this to be a favorite.

Ditto on the Super Bowl and Super Bowl parties. (Due to church services, the game would always be taped for viewing later.) I stopped going to those a long time ago when I realized that I could not view the commercials in mixed company, or more honestly, that they should not be viewed at all. At times that maybe the t.v. should have just been shut off, people merely got up to go get a coke. That was their way of dealing with a moment of discomfort, but not nearly enough discomfort to just do the right thing. Janet Jackson finally finished it off for most people who still have consciences. I thankfully missed her expose' because I had given up on being able to watch the Superbowl in good conscience.

Music took a turn somewhere, too, and a genre intended for pleasure and the eliciting of emotions from people became a channel for pure filth. We have evolved now to the point where our airwaves are full of "music" that invites the listener to 'go out and kill your local law enforcement officer for the fun of it.' It also invites you to embrace a lifestyle filled with infidelity to your mate, drugs, alcohol, and the unrestrained pursuit of every type of "feel-good" activity--- illegal, illicit, or whatever.

The result of garbage in is, as you guessed, garbage out. But one of the by-products of allowing all of this to come right in and live with us has been a generation or two now of emotional train-wreck victims.

It is very hard to be a sweet little naive boy or girl when you see someone's head blown off in living color each and every night, and sometimes several times a night, depending on your parent's taste in television. It is hard to retain innocence when sex is vividly described and performed multiple times during a "normal" day of network television. Cable has taken viewers to all new heights (really new depths) in the shock value categories. Nothing has been left to the imagination. No subject is taboo. Jerry Springer and Geraldo and numerous other talk show hosts have taken reality to a level that we never needed to achieve.

And so, here we are, at the turn of the millennium, running out of new sins. Every so often, someone manages to commit an atrocity so rotten, so filthy, so inhuman, that we all get shocked for a nanosecond. Then we go right back to our emotionless lives.

I'll bet that some who read this might get offended and deny being desensitized. They would say, in their own minds, they feel plenty. I would challenge that.

I began to notice some years ago, around the time that filth really began to hit the airwaves, that my circle of acquaintances began to change in demeanor. I have always been one to feel everything very, very deeply. I realize that not all people are made that way. Sometimes it is a blessing to feel things more deeply than others; other times, it is more of a curse.

You cannot go to church on Sunday and then go home and get out the Nintendo and kill a few people and reconcile that in your mind. You just cannot. So, to compensate, you just turn off the emotions all together. You cannot "take communion" and then run right out and engage in an adulterous affair unless you have turned off the emotional spigots. You cannot wear your "Sunday Best" on Sunday morning and then go home and strip off all your clothes, don a string bikini, and mow the yard unless you are either really untaught or you just don't care.

You cannot go into a home, kill an entire family, while all the time being a "leader in your church" and holding down a job unless something very terrible has happened in the area of your brain that is responsible for emotions.

Eddie, a very dear member of our church, recently reminded us that you can put a frog in a pot of water and turn up the heat so gradually that he does not know he is being cooked. He'll sit happily in that pot of water while you turn up the heat one degree at a time. Pretty soon, he's dinner. I am afraid we are becoming a nation of cooked frogs.

Mothers have begun to dope themselves up, many times unnecessarily, with drugs that keep them from having to feel the highs and lows of life. They have reasoned that it is much easier not to feel anything at all than it is to feel the stressful and sometimes heart-wrenching feelings that accompany having a home and family. None of us have too hard a time when times are good...when everything is going right and we are king of the hill. But it takes a much stronger person to ride the waves and deal with things like debilitating or terminal illness, the death of a loved one, or financial loss.

I have done an informal poll of my closest acquaintances, and I have found an alarming trend. There are a TON of people on drugs to alter their moods. Doctors are all too happy to send you on your way with a new prescription for one of a number of "anti-depressants." In my experience, there are more women than men who use these drugs, and I fully understand that are some people who really need them. I cannot help but think, however, that there are just a lot of people these days who are genuinely not happy people, and they are using acceptable drugs to take the edge off the pain or better yet get to the point where there is no feeling at all!

I have always had a pet peeve, of sorts, that is targeted at those I may worship with at times. To me, worship should be the most awesome of all our experiences here on earth. We have the opportunity to come into the Presence of the Almighty, but even that does not excite us anymore. We mouth the words to such songs as "Hallelujah, What a Savior" and cannot even remember which verse we are on. Those who lead in singing from pulpits all across America can attest to the lack of feeling coming from the worshippers. It is an exercise in futility sometimes to try and wake the congregation.

I am not saying that we all must worship with some kind of manufactured charisma. I would be happy if people just smiled a little when they sang "Jesus is All the World to Me" and shed a tear or two occasionally when they reflected for five minutes on His suffering at Calvary. It would be nice if unbelievers who come into our churches from time to time searching for something were moved by our rendition of "Oh, How I Love Jesus" enough to want to join us in our walk towards Heaven. I think that many times, people can sit in congregations for years and never have their conscience pricked enough to make changes in their lives. Sometimes,the responsibility for this decision to do nothing lies entirely with the person. Other times, the church has let this person down. If I sit in an emotionless church for 30 years with very little impetus to grow and improve my inner self, how can I expect droves of the unsaved to come rushing in, just begging to have what I have?

We are just not hungry and thirsty anymore. There is an urgency with hunger and thirst. There is urgency in very few lives anymore. Most of us are just comfortable. We are not extraordinarily happy or sad. We love our mates, but we do not have love affairs with them (our mate!) Perhaps we love our children, our flesh and blood, the most, but oftentimes, we go days without having a meaningful conversation with that child. Our highs come from collecting possessions, and our lows come when things don't go our way. Let some terrorists invade our space, and we get angry and patriotic for a little while. But in time, it all fades back to the lackadaisical lifestyle we have become comfortable in living.

There is not the depth in relationships that I have seen in other eras during my lifetime. Friendships are often on the surface level. In fact, many prefer to keep a comfortable distance so that others do not know too much about what is going on in their lives. In the friendship category, we are often friends with many, many people, but we do not take the time to invest ourselves in the lives of others on any kind of a deep level. (jack-of-all-trades, master of none.) That is how our next door neighbor can be a mass murderer or a child molester. That is how the person who has sat on the pew with us for 10 years can just turn out to be a big phony bologny! We don't really know him or her deeply. We are often shocked when we find out that someone we thought we knew was having an affair or embezzling funds from his company. I strongly contend that our emotionless relationships are the culprit.

What can we do? Well, once we have so scalded ourselves so that there is no feeling left in that part of our body or our emotions, it is hard to turn around. However, the brain is indeed an amazing thing, and sometimes, we can apparently create new paths in our brain by exercising them. It is never easy work. But it is so worth it to feel the love of a child, to share the burden of a friend, to experience worship as God intended, to love that soulmate with all our hearts.

I pity those that cannot find their way back or choose not to. Yet, I will not let the lack of emotion from those around me entrap me into a way of life that is second class at best. I chose my epitaph a long time ago. Let it be said of me when I die, "She lived to love and loved to live."