DAILY DOSE OF HOPE – BLOG – NAIMA LETT
First Elmo. Now Barney. Who’s Next?
© NaimaLett.com/blog
© Sesame Street and Barney & Friends
Been a rough year for Children’s TV creators.
First Elmo. Now Barney.
Who’s next?
Elmo
Kevin Clash, creator of Sesame Street’s super famous Muppet Elmo, is no longer known solely for his 28 years of service, 23 Daytime & 1 Prime-time Emmy Awards. In November, Kevin resigned from Sesame Street engulfed in scandalous allegations of inappropriate relationships with underage teens. To date, 6 young men have joined a lawsuit against Kevin. Voice-overs for Elmo are recorded through 2014, but Elmo’s fate thereafter is up in the air.
Barney
This week, Barney & Friends creator, Sheryl Leach, was slapped with a suit for negligence in allowing her son Patrick (and his supposed violent tendencies) to own guns on her gated-community property in Malibu. Patrick is charged with attempted murder after shooting his neighbor with a .45 in an argument over trespassing. I don’t know if Sheryl can actually be held accountable for her 27-year old son’s behavior, but Barney is now on the 6 o’clock news in this heated debate over gun control?
Who’s Next?
Dora? Big Bird? Mr. Snuffleupagus?
Creators of our children’s beloved television characters are just as human and flawed as the rest of us (though I truly hope that we aren’t coercing young men through chat rooms, etc.) The difference between them and us is their millionaire dirty laundry is hung out to dry on TMZ, CNN and E! News. Nobody’s too concerned with exposing our $10 boxers from Target or our 3 for $20 special from Victoria’s Secret.
But here’s the lesson for all of us: whatever we think we’re hiding or getting away with is no secret at all. Eventually, the truth surfaces. Young men find their way to a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Neighbors press charges. And our jobs hire publicists to spin damage control.
Live Like Everybody Knows
How about we choose to live in transparency, as if everybody knows what’s going on?
Ephesians 5:8-13 encourages us to live as children of light: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.”
Everything illuminated becomes a light. Isn’t that a beautiful picture? That’s what I aspire to today. Won’t you do the same?
And let’s pray for the creators of the content that reaches our children on a daily basis. We entrust them to entertain and teach our babies; but it sounds like they could use some intercession when they leave Sesame Street or Barney’s neighborhood and go home to their own cul-de-sacs.
Lifting folks up from the LaLa,
Naima
Rev. Naima Lett, D.MIN, ABD
Author of coming release Confessions of a Hollywood Christian
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© 2013 Naima Lett. All Rights Reserved
Yep.
:=)
Doesn’t the Word say that, ‘that which is hidden will be revealed?’
Truly it is becoming increasingly apparent that each of us is responsible for our own actions/faith, and some are finding their choices were not good character ones.
How many more ‘good people’ will have the spotlight shone on their hidden iniquities?
I guess that which we do today for profit will be used in evidence those judging our actions on earth, and judgement in the life to come. Get used to it, and live by it because you can’t get away from it.