DID YOU SEE THE PICTURE in front of that store?" my daughter asked. The store she was referring to was a tattoo parlor that had just opened across the street from her elementary school in Southern California. The picture was a ten-foot-tall mural of a man preparing to tattoo a scantily clad woman. I had seen the picture, but wasn't sure what, if anything, I should do about it.
I spoke with the school principal, who said she'd talked with the police department and had been told that nothing could be done. As long as the mural wasn't considered pornography, the company had a legal right to display it. During our conversation, I had been praying, and I felt inspired to offer to write a respectful letter to the establishment. The principal seemed skeptical.
I went home and prayed some more. I needed guidance on what to include in my letter. I thought first about this statement from the Bible: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Matt 22:39. I wanted to see the owners of this company not as adversaries, but as neighbors. I also thought about the passage in Science and Health that reads, "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals." Science and Health, pp. 476-477. The owners of the tattoo parlor were God's children just as much as the children in my daughter's school, and I knew I needed to see that. I prayed with these ideas until I no longer felt upset about the situation. Then I wrote my letter.
