Saturday, July 21, 2007

900 Messages a Day


Educators, parents and others get fairly anxious when they realize that average child see or hears 900 messages from the media and advertisers each day. They agonize over ways to counter those messages. Suddenly this week I had an epiphany:

God gives us way more than 900 messages a day, if only we attend to them.

I realized this after I had called Charlie away from his play to look at a tiny down feather I found on our deck. It was blue near the quill, beige in the center, and brownish red at the top. It was beautiful and tiny, and I wanted to share it with someone. The next day as we were walking out to the car after a rain, I saw that the moss on our fence post had bloomed, and we got out of the car to look at it, and compare it to the moss on the other fence posts and generally take some time looking at really tiny things.

We are surrounded by beauty and miracles. We can choose to attend to them, and encourage our children when they do. That is how to counter 900 media messages.

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