We took our family to see Angry Birds – the Movie the other
day.
I wasn’t overly impressed, there were probably too many gay-dance-club-naked-buttocks-in-leather-chaps
scenes than there should have been for a kids cartoon, but hey, I’m not
judging.
I was a little concerned about the linguistic (and cooking)
nightmare the movie set up between pigs referring to eggs as ‘omelettes’ and
birds referring to eggs as ‘children’, but I can live with that as well.
There were plenty of fart jokes and nastiness and bottoms,
but that’s just a typical day at our place.
What I found most fascinating about this movie, was the
message my four year old daughter took home with her.
She already has a bit of a reputation for being a wild one
(or a holy terror, depending on who you talk to) so taking her to a movie that
celebrates anger and blowing up and hitting things that displease you, was
always going to be a risk.
Yet, the one thing she took away with her was the meditation
scene.
Shocking, right?
A few days after we saw the movie she told me how she taught
her grandma how to ‘breathe’. Mildly confused, and probably distracted by some
hilarious meme on Facebook, I nodded and smiled and said ‘that’s awesome.’
Knowing she was being ignored, she sat cross legged on the
floor, stretched her arms out with her palms turned upwards and closed her
eyes.
Considering this was the quietest she had been since birth,
I could not help noticing. I was so shocked in fact I needed a glass of wine
and a lie down.
The holy terror… was meditating.
Then a few days after that I spoke with her grandma about
this amazing scene. I had assumed that she had taught my daughter the restful
pose, but needed two glasses of wine and a lie-down when I was informed, that
it was my daughter who was doing the teaching. And that she had learned how to meditate
from Angry Birds.
I doubt she will be becoming a Buddhist monk any time soon,
her meditation sessions never last more than 30 seconds, but it has filled me with
hope that amongst the fart jokes and naked cowboys and cannibalistic pigs of
the world, a small child still notices a moment of silence.
