Opinion: Too much political TV leads to soul heartburn

Confession is “good for the soul.” So I confess: I’ve been watching too much political TV. And that leads to soul heartburn.

It’s one thing to want some information. We do, after all, have a big election coming up. Yea, verily, presidential. Surely is looking like I’ll be holding my nose with one hand, voting with the other, and then washing with soap. But I’d like to be a voter who is as informed as he is nauseated.

Enough’s enough, though. Sins of excess often carry their own punishment. A political overdose tends to make me surly, cynical, snippy, and generally depressed. The dog starts avoiding me. I become one of those people who can bring light and joy and laughter into any room just by leaving it.

I need to remember that no election will change who my King is — and that it’s great exercise to punch the power button on the TV remote. OFF more than ON will help my home, my mind, my soul, and my disposition, whether the shows are political or not.

But here’s another confession. While I’ve been writing this, the TV has been on. Sound down, but on. Can you spell “addiction”?

In a pathetic defense, I will say that it’s been an interesting few days politically. Stuff happening fast. Candidates calling it quits. Then endorsing ... “Are you kidding?! Two days ago, you said ...” Really?!

Anyway, I left the TV on, sound down, when I fired up my computer ... and noticed something. When they’re mute (it takes a button for that) these candidates may reveal more about themselves than when they’re prattling on aloud. I’m not much of a lip-reader, but, sound down, I began to note with new interest what their faces and body language may be saying more loudly than their words. Eyes really are a window into the soul. Body language is a real language.

Some of these folks point a lot. Some scowl a lot. Some seem habitually angry. Some smile seemingly genuinely, easily. Some smile “plastically,” on cue; the smile-time message from their mouths was hijacked before it got to their eyes. Some tilt their heads back and look down their noses. All of them just look tired. The most interesting body language I’ve seen was telegraphed from a former candidate standing behind the guy he’d just endorsed. The endorser looked like he desperately needed a strong antidepressant or a big gin and tonic.

If I’m reading the body language right, I’ve seen a candidate or two I’d like to invite into my home for a talk. Some others? Not hardly.

In any case, I recommend the sound down approach for a change. The proverb-writer is on to something when he warns that a “troublemaker” not only “goes about with a corrupt mouth,” he “winks maliciously with his eye, signals with his feet and motions with his fingers” while he is plotting “evil with deceit in his heart” (Proverbs 6).

I wonder what my own body language says about my heart, my soul. More than I suspect, I suspect.

Curtis Shelburne is pastor of 16th & Ave. D. Church of Christ in Muleshoe. Contact him at

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