Happy Birthday Sesame Street

Well this week’s Monday morning note is being written in the early hours of Tuesday morning! The reason is I left early this morning (sorry yesterday morning now) to come to BU Council in Swanwick. So today Tuesday we are celebrating 40 years of Sesame Street. No not at Council, though it will be interesting to see if It comes up! We did however spend some time today considering how we may better address the needs of children and better include them in the life of our churches. I have just had great fun however on www.sesamestreet.org go on, you know you want to! It never did take off in the UK as it did in other parts of the world but it has been a major player in the education of children around the world for, hard to believe, 40 years. And Bert and Ernie still look good on it.

The stars still want to be part of it. The Independent carries these four quotes:
MICHELLE OBAMA "I never thought I'd be on Sesame Street with Elmo and Big Bird... It's probably the best thing I've done at the White House."
JAMES BLUNT "I always wanted to be a Muppet. So when Sesame Street approached me, I thought: 'I'm going to be on this!' It's pretty incredible stuff."
RICKY GERVAIS "You know you've made it when you get asked to do Sesame Street or sing with a little furry puppet. It's quite weird in a funny way."
KOFI ANNAN "Elmo and his friends, they tell it straight... Keep it simple and it brings you back to earth. I think that is very important, we all need that."
Kofi Annan has of course simply restated what Jesus said: “Unless you become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The utter trust and dependency in the Father is sadly lacking in most of us and has been replaced by a self sufficient maxim that, well that, let’s be honest is really ‘childish’ rather than ‘childlike’!