Sunday, January 24, 2010

What Remains Of Us














What Remains Of Us is a documentary that was recently played here on our local documentary channel. I only caught a part of it, and am hoping to see a replay of it at some point (they usually do replays on this channel), but the part that I saw was terribly moving. A synopsis of the film is that a young female Tibetan refugee who had lived in south India due to the troubles in Tibet, and then later moved to Canada, returns to her Tibetan homeland, smuggling in a short video with some words of support and comfort for the Tibetan people. When she shows this video to varieties of different Tibetans, the sheer awe and reverence on the faces of these people as they witness their spiritual leader speaking to them, many of whom have never seen the Dalai Lama before, is just amazing to see. As soon as they see the Dalai Lama speak, they hold their hands together in a prayerful reverence for this beloved leader who has been exiled for so long from his homeland, and who now lives in India. I can't reiterate enough how their faces just beam when he begins to speak to them, and the respect they show him, even through the medium of a video player in which of course the Dalai Lama himself is only on film and not able to actually see these people, is jsut so moving. I guess this is a difficult DVD to get a hold of, for a number of reasons having to do with the security of those real persons who appear in the film, but if you can manage to see this, you will be inspired, awestruck and moved by it. This link (I still can't do links!) has more info, and pictures, from the film. Please take a look at it; the author of this blog does a much better job than I do in describing this film:

www.afterthelaundry.com/2009/09/what-remains-of-us.html

Tibet has been occupied by the Chinese, I believe since 1950, and the Dalai Lama, the Buddhist spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, has been exiled across the border in Dharamsala, India, for all of this time. In the meanwhile, the Chinese govt. has increasingly moved Chinese people into Tibet, to the point now that Tibetans are a minority in their own land, and are treated as second-class citizens. The ancient Tibetan culture is now in peril of being lost, as Tibetan youth are trained and educated in Chinese, and are taught to regard their traditional culture as one that is "backward" and primitive. The Chinese brutally repress any dissent in Tibet, and crush all manifestations of Tibetan culture. The Tibetan people though, are among the most spiritual people on this planet, and I believe that it is people such as these, that offer their prayers for all humankind and for all living things, in someway protect all of us from destruction. Please keep the Tibetan people, and the Haitian people, and those who wage war in the Congo and on the West Bank, and all peoples and all living things, in your prayers.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Haiti

This is such an overwhelming story. I've just been stunned following the news accounts. They need so much help, and help is arriving, but not fast enough. It seems that bottlenecks are occurring because the airport has been shutdown for some reason, and that many aid organizations are sitting over there on top of their supplies, and are not moving out into the devastated areas (which is essentially Port-au Prince). Security seems to be a concern, but I think that they may be over concerned on this issue and really need to begin getting supplies to the people. This is what makes me angry about aid organizations in this sort of setting; they have this corporate type mentality about protocol and procedures, when thinking out of the box is what is essential at a time like this. People are literally dying by the minute, and bureaucracy and extreme concerns for self-safety cause things to grind to a halt. Most of the big agencies like the Red Cross don't seem to distributing any aid even yet because of these issues, and the only agency that I've seen on television that seems to be actively assisting people right now is World Vision (www.WorldVision.org/Haiti). I'm sure there are a few others as well, like maybe Doctors Without Borders, but I haven't seen much on any other groups that are actively working on the ground. They keep saying that so many materiels have been sent to Haiti, millions of dollars worth, but the people say that no one is helping them, and news reporters don't see much evidence of any assistance reaching the people. The Haitian people are seeing that search and rescue teams are concentrating first on searching out places like the posh hotels where foreigners were staying, while they are left largely to their own devices in pulling friends and family from the rubble, and they see supplies that are cordoned off from them, for God only knows what reasons. We apparently have a World Vision warehouse here in Denver that has already shipped supplies to Haiti on Thursday, and I'm going to see if I can volunteer over there this weekend in getting supplies ready for shipment.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Nothing Ever Hurt Like You

This song sounds like a British Neo-Soul throwback sort of song (if there is such a thing), and I like the rough voice of the singer, James Morrison


Nothing Ever Hurt Like You

James Morrrison

1, 2, 3, 4
Ooh ohh ohh
Yeah yeah yeah
Hey

If loving you is easy,
Playing by the rules,
But you said love tastes so much better when it's cruel
To you everything was just a game,
Yeah you played me good,
But I want you, I want you, I want you,
So much more than I should,
Yes I do

I've got my hands up so take your aim,
Yeah I'm ready,
There's nothing that we can't go through,
Oh it hit me like a steal freight train,
When you left me,
And nothing ever hurt like you,
Nothing ever hurt like you

I was naive and wide eyed,
But you made me see,
That you don't get to taste the honey,
Without the sting of a bee,
No you don't

Yes you stung me good,
Oh yeah you dug in deep,
But I'll take, I'll take it, I'll take it
Till I'm down on my knees

I've got my hands up so take your aim,
Yeah I'm ready,
There's nothing that we can't go through,
Walk a thousand miles on broken glass,
It wont stop me,
From making my way back to you,
It's not real till you feel the pain,
And nothing ever hurt like you,
Nothing ever hurt like you

Oh everything was just a game,
Yeah you played me good,
But I want you, I want you, I want you,
I want you, I want you

I've got my hands up so take your aim,
Yeah I'm ready,
There's nothing that we can't go through,
Walk a thousand miles on broken glass,
It wont stop me,
From making my way back to you,
It's not real till you feel the pain,
And nothing ever hurt like you,
Nothing ever hurt like you