#151-Monitors

Wow. That's all I can say. Wow. Holy Magic Hair unleashed A Tale of Two Cities up in here. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Bringing out the Charles Dickens and the French Revolution in folks. For real.

Take me back, dear Lord

I feel led to take SAL back. Get old school and Andrae Crouch on y'all. Back to those good old days when our controversies were simpler, more removed from indicators of the destination of our eternal souls, and could be avoided with simple semantic sleights (lovers of alliteration, I did that for you). Remember "monitors," y'all? Remember when getting all Hamlet ("to have or not to have") with regards to television was a big deal? ::sentimental sniff::

Television vs. Monitors

I remember it well. I remember those days when it was of utmost Pentecostal correctness to make a distinction between "television" and "monitor." "Television" = hellivision, the one-eyed devil and the cause of the unraveling of the moral fabric of our society. "Monitor" = good, wholesome holy contraption on which you would watch Anne of Green Gables and Old Yeller. If you came into the home of a true Apostolic and mistakenly referred to the screen on which their VHS collection of Hallmark movies was displayed as a sinnerly "TV," do you remember the gasps you elicited followed by a quick correction of "It's a monitor, not a TV since we don't watch TV on it"? I do. ::nostalgic sigh::

As I matured in the Lord, I learned that using a TVish screen to watch, say, a DVD of the first season of Lost, is acceptable, whereas watching Lost on ABC is not. Flesh and blood did not reveal this to me.

Enter the Internet

But as is wont to happen in the 21st century, technology throws a monkey wrench into our previously held, 20th century concepts. Thanks a lot, Al Gore. Thanks to your invention, I can no longer make black and white distinctions because the Internet essentially blurred the TV/monitor line. Thanks for essentially erasing my path back to that old landmark. How can I find my direction and get that love placed down in my heart when one of the most vivid lines between the secular and sacred in my fight to live holy has been stripped away from me? Blast you, postmodernism!

Good old fashioned _______

I know the remedy. You know how we always need some good old fashioned whatever to make things better? Some good old fashioned preaching. Some good old fashioned prayer. Some good old fashioned singing. Well, by golly, we need some good old fashioned proponents of monitors. Its semantic usage has declined in recent years due to the advent of the 21st century, but I say we need to bring it back. How many of you will take a stand with me for using the word "monitor" to describe a TVish thing that's not a TV in your home? ThankyaJaysus.