Stop for a moment and pay attention to the sounds in your life.
They're all around us, whether in the background, on TV or beamed through our earbuds, and all of it registers in our minds--and in our subconscious.
I think of that when I'm in a store or restaurant and the prisoner of whatever is playing over the sound system. Often the lyrics are laments and complaints set to music, as if none of us have a reason to feel glad. About anything. Singer after singer moans there's no reason to go on.
I asked a clerk whether listening to such tunes all day depresses her. She looked puzzled for a moment, then said, "Music? Oh, yeah, I guess it is playing, isn't it? Well, I never listen to it."
Can we remain unaffected by what's around us?
The experts say even when we deliberately try to tune it out, we hear it and it affects us. Colors our outlook on life.
Think how many people spend their days and nights plugged in to news and "comedy" patter on TV and the Internet. Over and over performers and talking heads proclaim life is hopeless and the world is a terrible place. Frequent references to suicide, killings and what's-the-point-of-living are not hard to find.
Since we know a steady diet of junk food leaves the body in poor health, lacking in energy and unable to function, couldn't mental and emotional junk food do the same for our minds and spirits?
If we feed on emptiness, it fuels emptiness.
If we fill up on the negative, that's what it produces.
Put the good stuff in
How would it affect us if we fed our inner selves with nourishing food?
We could make different choices and listen to happy songs like this oldie from Annie, Get Your Gun. It's a toe-tapper, for sure.
Got no diamond, got no pearl,
Still I think I'm a lucky girl,
I got the sun in the mornin' and the moon at night,
Got no mansion, got no yacht,
Still I'm happy with what I got,
I got the sun in the mornin' and the moon at night . . .
Sunlight gives me a lovely day,
Moonlight gives me the Milky Way,
Got no checkbook, got no banks,
Still, I'd like to express my thanks,
I got the sun in the mornin' and the moon at night,
And with the sun in the mornin' and the moon in the evenin,'
I'm all right.
--Irving Berlin, written in 1946
Available 24 hours a day: Find comfort and hope in the Bible
Always, we choose. What if we filled our minds with words of strength like these?
(Jesus said) "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." --John 14:27
Or these verses, from Ephesians 3:14-19. Paul wrote it to the Ephesians, but it applies to you and me, too.
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
It's the better "filter" for what we let in to our minds
The more we take in the "Good Stuff" the more it lifts our minds and hearts.
Gradually we'll find it easier to remember we've got the sun in the morning and the moon in the evening and so many reasons to thank God.
That's the balance, the filter that keeps out what would turn our outlook dark. Taking in the Truth reminds us who we are in Christ and keeps us on track.
Still learning,
Lenore
