-Jason

That's right, I'm in Beach. And no, there is no sunbathing on sandy shores here. Apparently this little town of about a thousand people in southwestern North Dakota is named for Captain Warren C. Beach of the U.S. Army's 11th Infantry, who lead an expedition of railroad surveyors through the area in 1880. The town of Beach is easy to find. It's at exit number 1 along I-94. It's very close to Montana, in other words.

Last Friday I headed west to this little town for my summer parish assignment at St. John the Baptist Church. Along the way, I pulled off at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park's Painted Canyon Scenic Overlook and rest area.

To my surprise, bison were grazing on the lawn of the visitor center/rest area. Some were even wandering around the parking lot.

This is the view from the scenic overlook.

Today I went out and walked around town. Here's a snapshot of the water tower.

This is St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, where I am living and working this summer.

One of the windows in the church.

A photo of the county's veterans memorial seems appropriate on this Memorial Day. The list of veterans seems long for such a small population.

Just east of Beach is the town of Sentinel Butte, pictured here beneath the towering butte from which it gets its name. I really wanted to get up to the top of the butte, but some traffic was blocking my way:

I'm not sure where these guys were going in their covered wagons, but they weren't moving very fast and they blocked the road. So I decided to try to get to the butte again some other time.

The towns around here and their church congregations have been extremely welcoming, and I think it's going to be a good summer out here.

-Jason

After years (literally) of agonizing over it, tonight I have completed a draft of my graduate thesis! It is pretty much the only thing I have worked on for the last two weeks. Everybody else left for their summer assignments two weeks ago, but I stayed behind. I did the same thing last year, hoping to make progress on my thesis after everybody left. I ended up completely wasting that time by riding bike and watching hours of the t.v. series "Corner Gas," on DVD. Don't ask me why, but our library has all six seasons. I found that series interesting because it was set in rural Saskatchewan, not too far from home, and because it's hilarious.

But not this year. This year, I buckled down and cranked away on the thesis, thanks be to God! It's actually quite nice around here when it's quiet and I don't have to rush to ten thousand different things each day. This scenario was perfect for thesis progress.

Tomorrow morning I will pray, attend Mass, and quickly pack up my things for the summer. Tomorrow night I'll be in Wisconsin visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and my new little nephew. After that, on to North Dakota.

Adios, Saint Louis. See you in the fall.

-Jason

Last Friday, May 14th, 2010, at 5:30 p.m., my little nephew was born to my brother, Ira, and sister-in-law Heather. They gave him the name "Noah Wallen Signalness," and he weighed 7lbs, 7oz and was 19.5 inches long at the time. Ira tells me he has huge feet and is already sort of "tall," even though he's only a couple days old. He must take after his dad.

I'm so happy for the two of them. I think they'll be great parents. But they might have their work cut out for them. That look on his little face seems rather mischievous, doesn't it?

-Jason

The song from Red Hot Chili Peppers with the same title as this post is stuck in my head. "Throw away your television ... Take the noose off your ambition ... Reinvent your intuition now... Oy! Oy! Oy!" Anyway, on to the topic at hand.

Before I came to the seminary I wasted a lot of time watching television. A lot. And by “wasted,” I mean I was not being entertained. In fact, I was just shutting off my brain and avoiding the work of thinking about serious things in my life: the building of friendships and the challenges that entails, the pursuit of true happiness, and perhaps most important of all, t.v. helped me ignore the fact that I was uninformed about holy things, particularly God Himself. But now with little space for a television in my 10-by-10 room, I watch very little television. Surprisingly, it didn't take long after television was removed from my life before the withdrawal symptoms subsided and I discovered the gift of additional hours in my day.

Before, after a day at the office, I would be tired. So I would click on the television and my brain would shut down. The trouble is, when I would turn off the t.v. I would not feel refreshed. What good is recreation if it doesn’t leave one feeling refreshed and renewed – in a sense, re-created? When I used to turn off the t.v. at the end of the night, invariably I had watched it longer than I should have. My eyes would be heavy, my head maybe even aching, as I lumbered off to bed far too late to get enough sleep before work the next day. Was it worth it to watch reruns of Seinfeld? Am I better off for it? Not in that case.

Seminary forced me to turn off the t.v., and I did not mind the lack of the distraction. I really don’t have time to watch it, first of all. And second of all, without television I find myself re-creating in more meaningful ways that actually do leave me feeling more refreshed. Maybe I take a nap when I’m tired instead of vegging out in front of the t.v. Or maybe I go for a walk, do some leisure/spiritual reading, write in my blog, visit with my neighbors and friends, call Grandma, or go converse to God in prayer. Those activities generally leave me at least relaxed and at best ready and energetic to tackle the next pile of work.

All of this comes to my mind today because my favorite t.v. show, Lost, is back on the air. You may recall how I became a Lost addict back in 2006. I’m not opposed to watching television, so long as it’s done for true recreational purposes. I enjoy Lost, so I watch it. In previous seasons I downloaded the show from iTunes. But this year, I decided to spend my money on a t.v. tuner for my computer instead of handing cash over to iTunes. That way, I rationalized, I can record the season, and anything else I want, without additional cost, and I avoid hogging the limited seminary bandwidth. It seems like a practical purchase.

But once I got the t.v. tuner hooked up, and was able to watch 11 High Definition over-the-air channels (4 of which are PBS) in my room on my computer, I had a strange feeling. My room felt different. There was a new intrusion of the world into my little private habitat. I became concerned that I would start watching t.v. more, that I would revert to my mindless couch potato status whenever I was tired in the evening.

A few times since I purchased this device I have turned it on and tried to watch some television. But I realized that I have lost the taste for it. The commercials are so abundant that it is not worthwhile (unless you can fast forward through them) and so much of what is aired is junk. Additionally, many of the shows are designed for those who suffer from ADD. Just watch any news channel. A while back, I turned on the t.v. and saw the screen divided into four quadrants, with four different people talking simultaneously, one in each quadrant. And as if four people simultaneously yelling at one another did not provide enough to hold my attention, text scrolled continuously across the bottom of the screen, occasionally grabbing my eyes and dragging them slowly from left to right across the screen. Graphics were incessantly moving, flashing across the screen with intense words like “CRISIS!” and “BREAKING NEWS!” but, oddly, they were not discussing much of anything important. As I watched, my brain started to become overloaded and I felt uncomfortable. Then a commercial break came on and I was screamed at by a homemaker who was extremely happy with her new brand of paper towels. It was too much. I turned it off.

The same thing happens each time I try to watch t.v. in my room. It’s not worth it. If there’s a show I like, I might record it. But channel-surfing to unwind just doesn’t work for me. If anything, t.v. makes me more nervous and tired.

Stop watching t.v. for a while. By "a while" I mean a month or two - maybe give it up entirely for Lent. Then turn it on, and you’ll be amazed at how absurd it seems. Now that I've said all that, I should mention that I have the newest episode of Lost waiting for me on my desktop. I'm looking forward to checking it out tonight, after all my work is done for the day.

-Jason