Wednesday, May 27, 2009
I recently wrote this article and thought I would share it here as well.
Running AMOK
John and Kate Plus 8 Minus 1 (Viewer)
By Dave Weiss
I have a favorite TV show. It’s sort of a guilty pleasure of mine and that show is…NCIS. Yeah I know but stick with me, I’m making a point. In the last episode of NCIS this season we are left hanging with Ziva having left NCIS somewhere in Africa, bruised and beaten and being tortured. I confess I’ve spent some time wondering how long it will take for Gibbs to come to her rescue. I’ll have to wait to find out, because not long after that shot, the director yelled, “cut!” and Mark Harmon went home for a well deserved break from being Gibbs and Cote de Pablo removed the fake bruises and scars and did whatever she will do until shooting resumes, while Gibbs and Ziva return to the imaginations of their very creative writers. Gibbs and Ziva are great characters but they are not real people.
The same cannot be said for John and Kate Gosselin and their eight children. I must confess I do not watch their show anymore. In the beginning I found it sort of interesting. We are from the same area, they live only a few miles from me and many of the places that showed up on the show were places my family and I go. I’ve never met them, though in this area everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows them and the stories range from reasonable to ridiculous. I stopped watching the show not because of them but because of me. I found myself judging their parenting, complaining about the way they react to each other, etc. as if I were in some way fit to do so. I think what really turned it around for me was when I heard others doing the same. I have heard friends complain about all the things they get for free (like any of us would turrn those blessings down), their big house (you need a big house to accommodate 10 people), the money they receive to spend their lives in a fishbowl and on and on. I found myself defending them, because let’s face it, I can’t speak for you but if the show was called Dave and Dawn Plus Two and the cameras would follow me around, it would not take anyone very long to see I’m not always and honor student either. Compound that with the fact that if when my son was born, there were five more of him plus two other children under five, well let’s just say Gibbs and Ziva would have had to come rescue me. It would not have been pretty. I don’t know John and Kate, but I know this, when the cameras are turned off they are still John and Kate. They are real people. Maybe we’d be wise to remember that.
This season of the show opened amid the widely publicized rifts in their marriage and I’m sure many people watched it, but not me. These are not characters from a writer’s imagination. They are real people. I’m told that part of the reason for the rift in their marriage is being caused by the relentless touring schedule Kate is on promoting her books. I don’t know if that is true, but if it is, her Christian publisher Zondervan should be ashamed that they have not put her family first and pulled her off the tour. (On further investigation the link to Kate’s book tour on the Zondervan site is down leaving me to wonder if they did in fact pull the tour.) I’ve made a decision, I will not watch the show, nor will I be in the room is someone else is watching it. I will not read their books nor any magazine on which they appear. It’s not because I am boycotting them or judging them for their marital problems. Very simply it’s this. I will not contribute to their problems. I don’t know if the things being reported are true or not, neither does anyone else and the Bible is pretty clear on gossip. I don’t want to be a part of it.
I don’t know them but they are real people and real people face real temptations, which are hard enough to deal with. Real people who become celebrities face temptations on a whole other level. For my part they can return to a normal life and work it out with the rest of us and they are in my prayers. I’ve never met John and Kate, but if I did I would want to say this. I don’t know you, we’ve never met and I don’t know what makes you tick. I don’t know your kids either but as a person who has worked with kids I can say this. Your kids are real people too. They may like the trappings of celebrity, the nice house and the trips and all that stuff and I begrudge them none of it. But at the end of the day, if you asked them all, every last one of them would rather have an intact family than any of it. At the end of all this, the American people will move on to whatever comes next. What will be left when they’ve used you up? What you had before fame seems pretty special. Maybe it’s time to drop the show and invest in what matters.
DC (David) Weiss is pastor of New Creation Fellowship in Reading, PA and has been a professional in the graphic communications/visual arts field for over 20 years. A few years ago, he felt led by the Spirit to combine his love for art and ministry and A.M.O.K. Arts Ministry Outreach for the Kingdom was Born. A.M.O.K. is a ministry dedicated to helping people of all creative disciplines and ability levels to use their God given gifts to serve the Lord in preaching, teaching and reaching. More information on A.M.O.K. including free and low cost resources for preaching teaching and reaching can be found http://www.amokarts.com.
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Running AMOK
John and Kate Plus 8 Minus 1 (Viewer)
By Dave Weiss
I have a favorite TV show. It’s sort of a guilty pleasure of mine and that show is…NCIS. Yeah I know but stick with me, I’m making a point. In the last episode of NCIS this season we are left hanging with Ziva having left NCIS somewhere in Africa, bruised and beaten and being tortured. I confess I’ve spent some time wondering how long it will take for Gibbs to come to her rescue. I’ll have to wait to find out, because not long after that shot, the director yelled, “cut!” and Mark Harmon went home for a well deserved break from being Gibbs and Cote de Pablo removed the fake bruises and scars and did whatever she will do until shooting resumes, while Gibbs and Ziva return to the imaginations of their very creative writers. Gibbs and Ziva are great characters but they are not real people.
The same cannot be said for John and Kate Gosselin and their eight children. I must confess I do not watch their show anymore. In the beginning I found it sort of interesting. We are from the same area, they live only a few miles from me and many of the places that showed up on the show were places my family and I go. I’ve never met them, though in this area everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows them and the stories range from reasonable to ridiculous. I stopped watching the show not because of them but because of me. I found myself judging their parenting, complaining about the way they react to each other, etc. as if I were in some way fit to do so. I think what really turned it around for me was when I heard others doing the same. I have heard friends complain about all the things they get for free (like any of us would turrn those blessings down), their big house (you need a big house to accommodate 10 people), the money they receive to spend their lives in a fishbowl and on and on. I found myself defending them, because let’s face it, I can’t speak for you but if the show was called Dave and Dawn Plus Two and the cameras would follow me around, it would not take anyone very long to see I’m not always and honor student either. Compound that with the fact that if when my son was born, there were five more of him plus two other children under five, well let’s just say Gibbs and Ziva would have had to come rescue me. It would not have been pretty. I don’t know John and Kate, but I know this, when the cameras are turned off they are still John and Kate. They are real people. Maybe we’d be wise to remember that.
This season of the show opened amid the widely publicized rifts in their marriage and I’m sure many people watched it, but not me. These are not characters from a writer’s imagination. They are real people. I’m told that part of the reason for the rift in their marriage is being caused by the relentless touring schedule Kate is on promoting her books. I don’t know if that is true, but if it is, her Christian publisher Zondervan should be ashamed that they have not put her family first and pulled her off the tour. (On further investigation the link to Kate’s book tour on the Zondervan site is down leaving me to wonder if they did in fact pull the tour.) I’ve made a decision, I will not watch the show, nor will I be in the room is someone else is watching it. I will not read their books nor any magazine on which they appear. It’s not because I am boycotting them or judging them for their marital problems. Very simply it’s this. I will not contribute to their problems. I don’t know if the things being reported are true or not, neither does anyone else and the Bible is pretty clear on gossip. I don’t want to be a part of it.
I don’t know them but they are real people and real people face real temptations, which are hard enough to deal with. Real people who become celebrities face temptations on a whole other level. For my part they can return to a normal life and work it out with the rest of us and they are in my prayers. I’ve never met John and Kate, but if I did I would want to say this. I don’t know you, we’ve never met and I don’t know what makes you tick. I don’t know your kids either but as a person who has worked with kids I can say this. Your kids are real people too. They may like the trappings of celebrity, the nice house and the trips and all that stuff and I begrudge them none of it. But at the end of the day, if you asked them all, every last one of them would rather have an intact family than any of it. At the end of all this, the American people will move on to whatever comes next. What will be left when they’ve used you up? What you had before fame seems pretty special. Maybe it’s time to drop the show and invest in what matters.
DC (David) Weiss is pastor of New Creation Fellowship in Reading, PA and has been a professional in the graphic communications/visual arts field for over 20 years. A few years ago, he felt led by the Spirit to combine his love for art and ministry and A.M.O.K. Arts Ministry Outreach for the Kingdom was Born. A.M.O.K. is a ministry dedicated to helping people of all creative disciplines and ability levels to use their God given gifts to serve the Lord in preaching, teaching and reaching. More information on A.M.O.K. including free and low cost resources for preaching teaching and reaching can be found http://www.amokarts.com.
