Recently my husband was asked to write a message for our ward newsletter. Seeing how he did such a good job talking about the media, I decided to copy an excerpt from what he wrote:
In our digital world, it has become so easy to get
distracted and dull our senses. I might remind you what Elder Bednar
said in 2010: "Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed
in pixels, texting, earbuds, twittering, online social networking, and
potentially addictive uses of media and the Internet that you fail to
recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of
person-to-person communication."
Related to and more
recently, President Uchtdorf stated last October: "I believe that we are
not headed in the right direction, individually and as a society, when
we connect with family or friends mostly by reposting humorous pictures,
forwarding trivial things, or linking our loved ones to sites on the
Internet… Let us resolve to cherish those we love by spending meaningful
time with them, doing things together, and cultivating treasured
memories."
I might add that this includes our ward
family. What could our ward become if we made personal visits instead of
likes on Facebook? As we limit our consumption of media and
turn off our electronic devices, we immediately become more available
for spiritual promptings, promptings which are nearly impossible to hear
while "plugged in". My hope is that these promptings will include
things to say or do for others in our ward.
I am not
asking that we all become best friends with one another, no, let those
friendships happen naturally. What I am asking though is that we all
become better acquainted with one another and more involved in each
other’s lives.
Too often we leave the worries and
problems in the ward to the relief society or the home teachers. Who
needs a friend? Some food? Some furniture? If we could all be more
proactive in discerning one another's needs and not waiting until a
leader approached us, our ward will become a cherished memory in our
minds and a Zion for all of us.
Beautiful comments, I approve of the sentiments. I am definitely more active with the media that most people ever will be but its good to take a step back and try to see as you said "who needs my help" - Jeremiah
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I read this because I was actually thinking about adding people in my ward on Facebook so I would better know their needs. Although I don't think my idea was bad, I really just need to be their friends to know their real needs. And maybe that is just friendship. I always have this city of Enoch-type vision for my ward if everyone did their part when maybe, more realistically, I should be thinking of the benefits more of "cherished memories" as he wrote. Thanks
ReplyDeleteGo David! I especially appreciated the part that talked about how if we are constantly plugged in we will miss out on promptings from the Holy Ghost.
ReplyDelete