Practical Christian Mysticism

When it comes to kids television, often times the best shows can merely be described as “harmless” and “amusing”. Avatar: the Last Airbender is the exception to this, and quite frankly, can be called “exceptional” in every way. Avatar: the Last Airbender is probably the most edifying television series for children ever produced that is not an “educational” show. Aside from it’s high quality production and engrossing story, Avatar: the Last Airbender teaches true spiritual virtues and spiritual truths of a maturity level that even adults will have a lot to think about while watching it with their kids.

Avatar: the Last Airbender is set in a world of four nations; water, earth, air, and fire. Each nation has “benders” which are people capable of manipulating their element. The story starts as the fire nation as become domination-focused, and is waging war with the other nations. The Avatar is a person born to every generation that can “bend” all four elements. The Avatar in this story is Aang, so is only 12 years old and has been frozen for the past 100 years. He awakes to find the world in chaos and must set out to defeat the Fire Lord, and bring peace to the world.

Avatar: the Last Airbender series finally ended this weekend with a 2-hour, 4-episode series finale. I have been enjoying the series for a couple years now, but wanted to wait until the series ended before reviewing it. Mostly, I wanted make sure the lessons I felt the writers were trying to teach still held true through the end of the story line. Now that it has ended, I can confidently recommend it to any parent who wants to show their children something deeper than the usual dumbed-down dribble.

The series is founded in a variety of martial arts disciplines and draws heavily on eastern philosophy such as Hindu, Buddhism, and Yoga. The result is impressive and entertaining martial arts action with rich and spiritually insightful scripting. As both a mystic and a martial artist, Avatar: the Last Airbender really found a place in my heart and a great platform for introducing mysticism and martial arts to my children.

One of my favorite elements of Avatar: the Last Airbender is how they present the “bad guys”. While the series starts out with the usual “us vs. them” narrative, they slowly unravel the nature of the “bad guys” as more complicated than just good and evil. They don’t let the villains off with any kind of “it’s not their fault” non-sense, but they do show how the evil done by those individuals hurt themselves as much as others. By the end of the story, many of the beginning villains become allies. I always love stories that promote redemption.

Don’t get me wrong, Avatar: the Last Airbender is never preachy and often makes fun of itself. Aang, the Avatar, meets with a spiritual master in a swamp who teaches him “death is an illusion”. Later on, that same master is asked to put pants on (he only wears a leaf and twine) and responds by saying “pants are an illusion”. In fact, the show’s frequent humor, even in the most serious of scenes, is what helps give it credibility. It is show that can put you on the edge of your seat and make you laugh at the same time.

To those of you concerned parents: Sure, I don’t agree with everything presented in the series, but that’s not the point. It is a show that will make you and your kids think. Besides, it is a fictional story that never pretends to be anything more. There is never an obligation to the audience to accept everything presented as fact. That being said, the nature and depth of the relationships between the characters, and the lessons each characters learns as they mature and progress through the story are well worth some attention.

Later this Fall, the whole series will be available on DVD and can already be downloaded on iTunes. If you feel the need to keep commercials out of your home, like me, it is a great series you can invest in for your kids (and yourself).

Official Site: http://www.nick.com/shows/avatar/index.jhtml

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender