Thursday's Devotion

Thursday, January 15, 2004

When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
(John 11.43-44 NRSV)

In the summer of 1981, Will Lee, the actor who played an adult character named Mr. Hooper on the children's television show SESAME STREET, died. This posed a difficult set of issues for The Children's Television Workshop, producers of the show. Should they deal at all with the subject of death? If so, how would they explain it to their 10 million viewers, most of whom are under the age of six? A staff writer describes it this way: "We asked ourselves: What do we want the kids to know? What can they absorb? What might open up things we can't answer?' We try to create boundaries around what we can safely teach without doing any damage."
Child-development experts who specialize in loss and separation provided some specific don'ts for dealing with death on the show: Don't say Mr. Hooper got sick and died, because you don't always die when you get sick. Don't say he was old, because children think their parents are old. Don't say he went to the hospital and died, because people go to the hospital all the time.
What about the do's? Early on they decided they were going to say a few basic things. He's gone--acknowledge the reality. He won't be back. He'll be missed. They also wanted the cast to express how they felt about Will. And they wanted the kids to know that death stimulates a full range of emotions. You're sad, you're angry, you're frustrated--all at the same time.
The show that resulted aired on Thanksgiving so that parents could watch with their children. In one segment, Big Bird walks on camera and says to the cast: "I just drew pictures of all my grown-up friends on Sesame Street and I'm going to give them to you." He passes out sketches and the cast members ooh and ahh over the likenesses. He's left with Mr. Hooper's picture. "I can't wait till he sees it," says Big Bird. "Say, where is he? I want to give it to him."
One cast member explains: "Big Bird, don't you remember? We told you . . .Mr. Hooper died. He's dead." Big Bird says, "Oh yeah, I remember. Well . . . I'll give it to him when he comes back." Another cast member gets up from her chair and touches Big Bird saying, "Big Bird, Mr. Hooper's not coming back."
"Why not?" Big Bird asks innocently.
"Big Bird," explains the cast member, "when people die, they don't come back."
And that's true, Big Bird. They don't come back. Unless they happen to be a friend of Jesus.
Dear God, may Jesus always be my friend in this life and the one to come. Amen.
Ron Newhouse

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