Soaps…

I often stayed with my Aunt Neta when I was little.  Every afternoon all activity stopped, so she could watch her Soap Operas.  They were not quite so trashy in those days, although they were still filled with drama.   People would fall in love with someone else’s spouse, or they would be caught stealing money.  They seemed to get strange diseases, where they were close to death, but they looked really good in a hospital gown.  To me, they were boring as all get out.  Filled with organ music tremolo, you knew a commercial was coming when the music swelled.   

“Dallas” was the first soap opera that made it to prime-time.  My ultra-macho cousins, Kelly, Steve, and Ned never missed an episode.  I watched it some, but had trouble keeping up with what was a dream and what was supposed to be happening in real life.   

I have been forced at times to watch “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette.”  To me, these shows seem a lot like the soap operas Aunt Neta used to watch.  They simply are a little trashier and show more than I am comfortable with.  I’ve always wondered why anyone would say, “I just love him so much,” when he’s off kissing some other girl.   

To me, it seems like life has enough drama without adding more, particularly if you do what I do for a living.  Scarcely a week goes by that I don’t hear about a marriage that’s on the rocks.  Sometimes he cheated.  Sometimes she cheated. Sometimes one of them has an addiction.  Sometimes nobody cheated, but the stress of life drove a wedge in the relationship.  When these folks come to see me, they are in crisis.  The tears are real, the emotional pain intense.  Why would I need to watch somebody try to act out what I see in my office? 

These shows always seem to feature a hospital element.  I’ve spent more than my fair share of time in hospitals.  Real sick people don’t look as pretty as they do on the soaps.  Tubes are sticking in all seven body openings (go ahead and count, I’ll wait) and it looks like an electrician walked out in the middle of a wiring job.  The emotion is real, the fear can be thick.  If you want drama, go on the oncology ward where people are praying chemo works and the tumor is shrinking.  Or try ICU, where people are comatose, and the prognosis is grim.   

On the soaps, there always seemed to some betrayal.  As a pastor, I’ve walked with people through the real thing.  A business partner walks out with hundreds of thousands of dollars.  A father abandons his child.  A child runs away and vows never to return.  I’ve heard every one of these stories. 

Every soap has a villain, someone who is an arrogant know-it-all.  I deal with that all the time.  Somebody read something on a website (they couldn’t put it on the internet if it wasn’t true) and they want to correct some point of my sermon.  Or somebody doesn’t like something that is happening at church and they pitch what my grandmother used to call a “hissy fit.”  Why would I want to watch a show that is just like my daily life? 

I’m writing this in a truck-stop.  I’m on a deadline and this was the first place I could find with an internet connection.  A TV above my head is blaring out a soap opera.  I’m not a drama critic, but I’ve seen better acting in middle school adaptations of Shakespeare.  The show keeps jumping story lines.  So far a woman has tried to seduce an old boyfriend who is apparently having a relationship with an older woman; a man has just found out he may have a daughter with an old lover; and a set of parents was rushing to the hospital to be by their daughter’s bedside. This is what I can pick up without watching, but I’m getting a headache trying to keep up. 

If you have real life drama, God is there for you.  He may not make the drama disappear, but he will walk through the drama with you.  Never forget he will give you strength, wisdom, and grace to move through your drama.   

One older woman knew this, but mis-applied it.  She went to Mid-week Prayer Meeting and shared a serious prayer request: “Rhonda has been in a accident and is in a coma.  The doctors don’t know what to do and her family is fighting amongst themselves.  Please, let’s all pray for Rhonda, for her family, and for the doctors.”  The pastor was moved by this unfolding tragedy, and asked the woman which hospital Rhonda was in, intending to visit this poor soul and her troubled family. The woman blinked and said, “I don’t know.  They didn’t say.  But I will tune into “Days of our Lives” tomorrow and let you know.”