Article September 20, 2010 Issue

MEDIA IMAGES AND A SPIRITUAL LESSON

BY GAYLE WEBER

Our family had just finished an evening supper and put away the dishes. I walked into the other room and noticed my little daughter—about two and a half years old at the time—sitting in her tiny rocking chair in front of the television. Tears were silently streaming down her face. I was shocked and immediately asked, "Oh, Sweetheart, what's wrong?"

The television had been left on, and she was watching two cowboys having a fistfight. Her reply to me came through tears in her little voice: "Those men are hurting each other."

Of course I went to her, comforting her with assurances that it was only make-believe and that no one was really being hurt. But I took note of how what I perceived as such an insignificant portrayal on television could so disturb my daughter, even bringing her to tears.