Amusements

Where does your mind go when you hear the word amusements? Is it the latest roller-coaster? Is it the amusement park you go to every summer? Is it the local movie complex? Is it the day you take off work to go golfing? Or is amusement to you that quiet day on the lake or river to go fishing? Or maybe it’s just being “left alone” with the remote to live vicariously through our favorite pro athlete. For women it may be, to live the in romance of a beautiful leading lady being wooed and enticed by a handsome leading man.

Amusement: 1. the condition of being amused; 2. something that amuses or entertains; 3. entertainment.

Then you go to the base word amuse and the definition is this… 1. to keep pleasantly and enjoyably occupied or interested; 2. to make laugh, smile etc. by being comical or humorous. 3. to engage or distract the attention of. Synonyms are… entertain, divert, beguile.

If you break down the word even more, from amuse to muse, the definition is, 1. to think deeply and at length; 2. to meditate.

Now, if you look at the prefix “a”, this is a negative prefix that means “not to”; thus, not to think or meditate.

My point is this… how much do we “amuse” ourselves, are we saturating our minds with “amusements” so that we don’t have to think? Have amusements become an addictive process that is called “normal”? Do we say, “I would rather be entertained than have to deal with reality”? Do we get our lifestyle and thinking from Hollywood or do we “muse” on reality? Do we spend more time thinking and reading about the latest gossip from Entertainment Tonight or the Tonight Show, or Late Night? Do you know more about Sarah Jessica Parker than you do about the Apostle Peter? Does this type of thinking, or lack of it, lead to indifference and apathy? The next portion is from my writing of The Spiritual Implications of the November 2008 Elections.

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier: 'A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.' 'A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.' 'From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.'

'The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years'. 'During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage.

So in the light of “amusements”… where are we in the process of life as we know it? If I don’t think, I don’t have to worry and if I don’t worry, someone else will take care of it for me. And if someone else will take care of it for me, they will take care of me! The “proverbial they”, will do it all. They is me and they is you!!! We will be responsible for taking care of those who only want to be “amused”.

Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (Those who hunger and thirst for truth). After all, I’m just trying to get you to muse, to think

Following the Shepherd,
Ron