There are few rarer and more precious gifts than an awakening. I was stirred by this movie. Few times in my life have I sobbed in pain and out of genuine joy at the same time. How easily I forget my good luck in this world. How often do I squander my time, my resources, my energy, my heart. I do not even selfishly keep them and indulge in them myself, but cast them aside, spend them with nothing for a return, nothing offered as a gift.
That is sin. Yet I weep in joy, for it is a lesson taught.
This is a movie about friendship and a child’s eye, for children see without fear or judgment. So easily as we grow, we forget how to do this. I’m beginning to remember. This is also a movie about the Holocaust. I wept with sadness because there have been horrors committed in this world, horrors that are currently being committed now. I wept in pain because it could be me, gassed and dead, and I understand that suffering. I know that it is possible for me to experience this, for such a tragedy to be my tragedy.
Fire burns, we learn this early on. That is a simple lesson. It is basic. It hurts. Though through the complexities of our culture more complex vices emerge. They burn but more subtly, and because they wound us so slowly we forget what it means to be liberated of that pain. We accept it as a burden and we learn to even appreciate it as part of our existence.
Tonight I squandered my gifts, and then I was shown, so clearly, so simply, just how much I’m burning myself. I think it will be easier next time for me to remember. My reference may be vague, but that is intentional – it is too personal for me to write it here, yet. What I seek to share, because we all have these inner vices, is that we also have the opportunity to wake up to something else. This I say to myself as much as to anyone that might read:
In all that you do, remember who you are. Live the dream of who you wish to be. Die knowing you did nothing less.
If you want to know my inspiration for these thoughts, watch this movie.
I watched this movie on your recommendation. Interesting, sad, and something else… it’s a rare gift to be given insight into the “other” so vividly. Had it truly been “other” to me I think it would have been more poignant.
And for me in addition… learning about myself from my reaction: did I feel sorry for the Dad? Mom? Boy? Each had a different perspective, and different levels of involvement / commitment to the situation.