During Christmas break, my family and I moved into our new home. It’s been fun to put pictures up and find treasures in boxes that had spent the last two years in storage. One thing that did not make the move was our USDTV digital antenna and receiver. What is USDTV? It’s like DirecTV or the Dish Network, but instead of a digital satellite, USDTV uses an antenna to capture a High Definition TV signal via local airwaves. Like cable, it carries all the local channels, plus many of my cable favorites like ESPN and TLC.
Sadly my USDTV receiver and antenna did not make the move. Without it, I have had to resort to sticking a paper clip in the back of my TV connected to a wire coat hanger just to get a fuzzy signal of the local channels. I finally found some old “rabbit ear” antenna that work only nominally better than the paper clip/wire hanger setup it replaced. So, now I am resigned to watching local channels only, many of which are in Spanish or are selling religion. Due to poor reception, some channels barely have any color, their picture flickers back and forth between color and black and white. FOX4 is hard to watch thanks to the double vision image that comes through most of the time. Occasionally, I reposition the antenna, but nothing improves on the screen, instead the static only shifts to a different kind of bad.
I miss my high definition-quality USDTV.
If you have yet to view High Definition television, or HDTV, you don’t know what you’re missing. It is truly amazing. The level of detail on the screen is remarkable. Objects look more rich and alive than they do on “normal” TV. I imagine the experience of seeing HDTV for the first time is much like it was for people when the very first motion pictures became available. It’s like a whole new world. And even though I have yet to spend the money to get one of the new HDTVs for my home, with USDTV even the picture on my old Sharp TV came in more crisply and clearly. Many of the primetime shows come across letterboxed like movies, so I can watch a fuller picture of the action than on regular broadcast TV.
As followers of Jesus, living a life that is fully awake to God’s love instead of “going through the motions” is like the difference between watching regular TV and watching High Definition TV: it’s the same show on both, but only one comes through in the fullness of color, detail and clarity that was originally intended. Waking up to the reality of life in High Definition requires an awareness of the presence of God’s grace in all things and all situations. The initial change of heart, or conversion, comes not in our behavior (what we do) as much as in our outlook (how we see the world). If we can tune into God’s way of seeing the world, rather than our own often fuzzy and spotty way, then we begin to experience our lives in full color and wide action with a clear picture and sharp detail. Anything less fails to do justice to our call as baptized Christians.
Becoming an HD Christian takes a consistent commitment to seeing ourselves, our loved ones and those we encounter the same way God does: selflessly in love. To do this we look to Jesus to be our model, the Holy Spirit to be our guide, and to the Church to be our support. Once we’ve seen the difference between black and white TV and HDTV, my guess is we won’t be satisfied to waste our time fiddling with rabbit ears anymore. We’ll want the real deal, the full picture. It should be no less true for our life in Christ. Let's not just watch in HD. Let's live in HD.
Saint Joseph, pray for us. The Gospels agree that St. Joseph was a devoted father, husband, and man of faith. After learning that his bride-to-be became pregnant under suspicious circumstances Joseph did not divorce her or leave her, as was the custom of the day. Instead he married her and raised Jesus as his own son, providing affection and support for his adopted child. Rembrandt van Rijn's 1669 painting titled "Return of the Prodigal Son" (at left) expresses tangible paternal love and the sublime possibility of human, as well as divine, acceptance, reminding us of a father's love that never wavered, never faltered.
