Socially Spiritual People

Spirituality is all about the human experience, whether that is with friends and family or solo.  What I would like to note is that people are spiritually healthier when surrounded by loved ones.  Some describe Spirituality as the reasons why we do things, the internal motivations.  In the LDS church we believe that we should be as Christ-like as possible, which implies that we are always thinking of others.  Therefore, if a person is experiencing life by themselves then they have no one else to think about and they cannot be Christ-like.  In the film Ponette, the little girl, for whom the film was titled, pulls away from everyone around her.  She wonders why God is ignoring her, and she ignores that she is the one that detached herself.  Eventually her mother metaphysically visits her. This connection brings her back spiritually and ends much of her suffering.

            I would like to point out that her father was away for most of the film, and that made me cringe. How could he leave his daughter at such an important junction in her life? She could be seriously scared, and he up and left her.  I believe that family is more important than anything else.  Familial interaction is so vital for children to grow up and mature. I especially liked Dean’s article about family home media. I think technology (tv, computers, video games, etc) can really detach people from each other and hurts them spiritually.  I loved Dean’s article because he was trying to reintroduce parent attention, conversation, and other necessary family interactions back into the minds of the BYU magazine readers. Sometimes it is easier to just zone out and go about life not really interacting with people, but there are consequences for that spiritually. The effort of really being mentally and emotionally with other people, and not distracted, is worth it.

            In Matthew 13, Christ describes why he teaches in parables. Basically, it requires effort to understand. The message becomes more personal to them and also more valuable when all of that effort is expended trying to decipher its meaning.  Media consumption becomes a more worthwhile venture when we put in the effort to understand what we are watching it and how it affects us, “and in modeling such active reading, we insure that our children will become informed and literate.”  I can think of no better way to serve children then to give them more time and effort, especially when it comes to media because it surrounds them so well.