So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, good-bye

Today we said good-bye to our television and d.v.d player and gave them to a college student from our church. Sigh... It's for real. We are really now one of those strange and weird families who not only doesn't watch t.v. but doesn't even own one.

Even though Joel made this decision two weeks ago and immediately unplugged the t.v. it feels a little different when the t.v. is out of the house. I confess while it sat in the basement I had thoughts of plugging it in, especially on days when the kiddos were driving me up a wall.

For clarification purposes let me say we do not believe televisions, DVD players or VCRs are evil. Nor is watching them a sin. Though it can be. Yes, there is some decent programing out there. And decent videos you can buy. But you have to search pretty hard to find it. Even some children's programming has questionable elements in it (I recently saw an episode of "Arthur" with a crystal ball ceremony!!).

In fact, we have kept our two portable DVD players and all of our videos. We also have our VCR, mainly so we can copy our camcorder tapes on to large tapes for family members.

It remains to be seen what we will do when we stay in hotels. But for all my friends who occasionally have my children in their homes, yes, they are allowed to watch t.v. at your house. And to my family, yes, we will watch t.v. when we are at your homes.

I keep trying to write more to explain our decision but it keeps sounding preachy so I'll just end it here. If you want to know more, feel free to ask. I don't mind talking about it. And no, I'm not judging you for owning and watching t.v. Obviously, if I think our choice is a good one for our family then I think other families would benefit from the same choice. But that's between you and the Holy Spirit.

P.s. Can you name the movie I stole my title from?