A
few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our
town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting
newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was
quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few
months later. As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family.
Mom taught me to love the Word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it, but
the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales.
Adventures,
mysteries and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our
whole family spellbound for hours each evening. He was like a friend to
the whole family. He took Dad, Bill and me to our first major league
baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies, and he
even made arrangements to introduce us to several movie stars. The
stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind, but sometimes
Mom would quietly get up while the rest of us were enthralled with one
of his stories of faraway places, go to her room, read her Bible and
pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave.
You
see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but
this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them. Profanity, for
example, was not allowed in our house-not from us, from our friends, or
adults. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four-letter words
that burned my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger
was never confronted. My Dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol
in his home, not even for cooking, but the stranger felt like we needed
exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life.
He
offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes
look tasty, cigars manly and pipes distinguished. He talked freely
(much too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant,
sometimes suggestive and generally embarrassing. I know now that my
early concepts of the man/woman relationship were influenced by the
stranger. As I look back, I believe it was because of the grace of God
that the stranger did not influence us more.
Time
after time he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom
rebuked and never asked to leave. More than thirty years have passed
since the stranger moved in with the young family. But if I were to walk
into my parents' den today, you would still see him sitting over in a
corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his
pictures. His name? We always called him by his initials, TV.
Do not be deceived: “Evil communication corrupts moral character.”
~1 Corinthians 15:33 (Blue Letter Bible)
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