what's your filter?

i have a secret, i enjoy country music. correction . . . i enjoy 'county attitude'. as a sound, i'm not wild about the genre, but as a collection of songwriters and performers i must say i am greatly entertained. in fact, some of the greatest songs ever written come out of the country, hehe. don't believe me, check out songs like "ring of fire" by johnny cash, "the dance" by garth brooks, "strawberry wine" by deanna carter, "i hope you dance" by leann womack or "take it easy" by the eagles. so it didn't surprise me to see this young gal--taylor swift--tear it up at a music awards. sure, she's a little off-pitch at times, but the memorable moments throughout the song more than make up for it. it's what good communicators do . . . they keep you involved in what they are saying, by creating purposeful memory markers throughout their performance. by the time you're done you know what they said because they helped you remember how you felt as they said it. and there's a ton of creativity invested in this 4 min. piece to help you remember the song long after you've witnessed the performance. 

now, can i tell you something i've learned over the years? you've always got to understand the art of good communication through a filter of truth and love. what does that mean? it means that whenever you watch something or listen to something that impacts you, you have to learn to ask yourself "is what i heard or saw true and does it correspond to what love really is?" why do you need a filter like that ? . . . because without a strong filter you may be influenced negatively by what you experience. that's not to say that taylor swift or any communicator has some evil intention, in fact, just the opposite. most people creating music/art have the very best intentions. but good intentions don't make for truth and love. playwright george bernard shaw wrote "Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well" (btw, the wisdom literature in proverbs say it similarly). in other words, there has to be a higher standard by which we measure our experiences . . . a way in which we see the world as God intended it to be not as it is currently coming to us. when we soak up stuff that isn't true, our lives begin to reflect that false reality. if what we've experienced doesn't correspond to what love is, our lives may also unknowingly begin to reflect that dis-love. 

regardless of your personal filter . . . how does what you see in this video play itself out in everyday reality? in other words, in our culture do the ideas and the images that are embedded in this performance impact and/or reflect the way we treat and/or view girls/women? what message are we soaking in from the words of the song? do we agree with what we're experiencing? though it may seem disconnected, what you watch below is a good example of what we see regularly as a culture: a great performance that captivates us and hooks us, but isn't necessarily true or loving in it's presentation or it's content. and yes, it's what we're used to (the sexualization of an 18 year old girl, and the age old story of broken trust), but that's not the way things are meant to be, right? if you're used to this kind of thing and see/hear nothing that disturbs you . . . maybe it's time to consider your filter . . . do you have one? how do you gage the merit of what you are soaking up?