TV Is Over-Rated

Once we went on a tour with guys from one school and stopped at a monastery on our way. There a monk accompanied us everywhere, and one of the guys asked him,

“You don’t have a TV here, do you?”

“No, we don’t”, replied the monk.

It turned out very funny: at that moment when we were in the main cathedral of the monastery, the monk was telling us about the church, about the monastery, peace reigned around, and then suddenly such a question came up. Only a child, with his or her simplicity, sincerity and innocence, could ask a question at such a moment, “You don’t have a TV here, do you? Do you never watch TV?”

“Don’t you ever want to?”,  the boy continued asking, “How can you not get bored without it?”

“Why should we get bored?”

The monk answered the question with a question, bearing in mind the following – “I do what I love doing. I want to live like this, and I live because I know what it is for. Instead of watching TV, I look at Christ, addressing Him in my prayer. And my eyes, instead of being seduced by what I see on TV, are filled with tears, and it is beautiful. Tears in prayer are the sweetest. Do you know their taste? No? We monks cannot understand a worldly life. “How can you live like this?”, we wondered, puzzled, “It is so difficult – constant tension, stress …” “In monasticism, no one ever puts pressure on anyone. We have chosen such a life, and since our choice is voluntary, all of this is for our joy and pleasure.”

--Archimandrite Andrew Konanos, http://www.pravmir.com/father-order-me-to-quit-smoking-or-why-we-want-strictness-and-punishment/

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!