Guilty Pleasures

I love movies, I love DVDs. My major joy in the world of DVDs is actually not in the higher-than-VHS quality of the viewing, it's not in the anamorphic widescreen, and it's not even in the added convenience of how much space is taken up by a DVD disc as compared to a VHS tape. No my favorite part of a DVD is called the "Special features" with documentaries by HBO or E!, or even Peter Jackson running around with a DV cam saying this field will some day be Hobbiton, director commentaries, gag reels, deleted scenes, and step by step how to create and animate your very own CG Yoda (if only you had the computer software and memory we have). I love it all! I can literally spend hours watching the bonous features of a movie just to get a feel for how different people work, why do I like a particular film (or dislike it), and just so when I'm at a party I can say "I know how they did that effect" and sound like a movie genius myself.

So what? Why do you care how little of a life I have? Well, occasionally when I'm watching the bonus features on a DVD I will hear some one say that "that one shot cost us XXXX amount of dollars and YYY hours of work. But I think it was worth it." My question is was it really? I mean was it worth thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours work to transform a shepherds field into a village where a bunch of little people live for a couple weeks and then transform it back to just any field in the end? Think if instead Peter Jackson had told his friends "we are going to build a small town and let the poor and hungry people in New Zealand move into it and start their own businesses with some money we'll loan them." Assuming this was a successful venture, how would the lives of a couple hundred Kiwis be different today. How would your life be different? So what's the greater good? Now to take it more personal. What if having seen The Fellowship of the Ring in the theater and falling instantly in love with all things Tolkien I had eagerly awaited the release of the Extended Edition DVD, but at the last minute had instead put that $30 into a charity to feed a starving family in Africa for a month. How would their lives be better? How would mine be worse?

The difficult truth is that if PJ had not made LOTR my life would only be slightly different. My favorite movie would still be Star Wars, the Classic Trilogy (I know they are 3 movies, but they are best together as one), and I probably still would not have read any of Tolkien's books. That's about it, and if I had not bought the Rings trilogy on DVD, well there would have been 48 hours of commentary watching alone in the last 6 months that I would have done something else with. And that African family would have been able to eat well in a time where instead they fought famine and disease, they would have clean water, a milk cow, and goats to slaughter for the occasional celebration or even to sell the meat in town.

I suppose I am just having trouble with the concept that there are those in the world who have real needs that I could help with and instead last night I spent $15 on a Killers CD and $10 on a bag of coffee imported from Ethiopia. To the poor people who picked those beans $10 is probably at least a weeks salary.

That being said, I also believe that while God expects us to be good and compassionate stewards with the gifts he has bestowed on us, he also expects us to be able to enjoy the world around us. Thus there is nothing wrong with buying a new DVD or CD to bless brief periods of your life, but do so while keeping in mind God's call to reach out to those around you. Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth (don't take your DVD collection to the extreme of having EVERY movie ever made) at the expense of eternal heavenly treasures. As with many things in the life of a Christian it is just a balancing act, though the more you lean towards charity really can't hurt you.