‘We Reap what We Sow’

While surfing the Internet one evening looking for some interesting material to discover, I stumbled upon MediaWatch. I discovered that this website counteract secular media bias by reporting with a Godly perspective. I got intrigued. This is not a Catholic group. My best guess is it is interdenominational. They have a mailing list so I sent my name for subscription. I have received so far some interesting materials on various topics.
Recently I got this thought-provoking essay in my electronic mail box lamenting on what is happening with our youth today. Although the essay reflects on the circumstances occurring in the life of the American youth at present, the situation in our country is not also very far behind.

What in the world is happening with our kids today? Let’s see…

It started when somebody in school complained that she didn’t want any prayer in our schools, and we said okay.

Then someone said you had better not read the Bible in school – the Bible that says thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said, okay.

Remember Dr. Benjamin Spock, who said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem? And we said, okay, we wouldn’t spank them even though the Bible says ‘spare the rod and you’ll spoil the child.’

Then someone said, let’s let our daughters have abortions if they want or give them birth control pills, and we won’t even have to tell their parents. And we said that’s a grand idea.

Then someone else said, let’s give our sons all the condoms they want, so they can have all the ‘fun’ they desire, and we won’t have to tell their parents. And we said that’s another grand idea.

Then someone said, let’s teach and discuss sex in the classroom instead of allowing morals to be presented hand in hand with a love-based sexual relationship and sex knowledge by parents.

And then families decided that going to Church was just for the preacher’s family only. That it was not necessary to raise kids in church. That the parents would never have to answer to God for not teaching their children about God, Hell, the Bible and the needs to be spiritually healthy.

So now we are asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they do not know right from wrong, why sex is no longer an act of love, why there are no spiritual values, no morals instilled in our children and why it doesn’t bother them to kill.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with “we reap what we sow.”

The above reflection is a sad picture of what is happening among the youth today, not only in America but in other western countries as well. Shall we include our own country too? We are a Catholic nation, yet it is a stark reality before our eyes that more and more our youth needed guidance. We can only lament and beat our breasts on the kind of news that we hear and read about our young actors and actresses who are supposed to be role models to our young people.

The essay speaks of the responsibility of Church, school and family in instilling good behavior and morality in the children. However, there is another important factor that should not be overlooked. Media are the fourth element that plays a great responsibility in the life of kids (and adults as well) today. Oftentimes, the balance is tipped with media taking the upper hand against Church, family and school. Why is this so? We have allowed media to invade our homes and take control of our lives. The advertising industry rakes in millions of pesos at our expense, indoctrinating us to the ideology of hedonism and self-gratification. Who says we get commercials on television free? On the contrary, we are the ones who pay the advertisers by spending on their products. We accept unwittingly as gospel values the lies the advertising industry throws into our face. Now do we still wonder, why most of our well-kept sense of Christian values seemed to have evaporated in thin air? Indeed, “we reap what we sow.” But we have to make sure we sow the good seeds instead of the bad ones. There lies the challenge for all of us.