Five Broken Cameras

Jamie and I were hanging out last night and we found ourselves with a few hours to spare. We decided to watch a movie we haven't yet had time to see. My vote was Gandhi, her's was a documentary called Five Broken Cameras. My movie was three hours long, her's was an hour and a half. We watched her movie.

Now, I don't pretend to understand anything about the Middle East and what is going on over there. I only know bits about what Jamie shares when she lived over there in the summer. Anyway, Five Broken Cameras is a documentary filmed by a Palestinian man about his town and how it is being encroached upon by others. Through the course of his filming he breaks five cameras whilst documenting the violence.

I didn't understand the complex situation and politics about what was going on and so I'm not trying to give an opinion on the situation  I'm just trying to say what I saw in the movie, and what I saw was a little town, filled with people who lived in a situation much different than my own. Their situation was dangerous, unknown, and somewhat helpless. I felt fear for them as their land was taken, soldiers threw tear gas at the residents, the town residents threw rocks back, and people were killed. Through all of this the man filming keeps showing his little boy and family. I looked over at Jamie, and I thought about the future we are about to begin together. About how uncertain I sometimes feel, and how fearful I am. I wrote a poem about it the other day, in order to get my thoughts out on paper.

O whither leads the path I take?

On which my entire life 's at stake

Is power of direction mine,

or led by something more divine?

O wherefore don't I know,

O, whither I shall go?

My blind step seems so slow,

but...is that truly so?

For whither leads the path I take?

So shaky are the plans I make.

I do not know what I will be

o whither does this path take me?

Despite this uncertainty I realized how lucky I still am. I am lucky to live in the land I do. I'm not stuck in some situation where men with guns take my land, my livelihood, arrest my children, shoot my friends, and the laws which should protect me are ignored. I live in such security. I have such opportunity  I was a little ashamed of my fears, when Jamie and I are so lucky and have so little to actually fear.

I thought of how many other places there are in the world where people don't have the chances I do. I felt a strong responsibility to help. I have a favorite hymn with words that say, "Because I have been given much I too must give." I feel so blessed and therefore must seek to help and give. Now...I don't mean this as a type of "white mans burden". I don't see myself as any better than any other human beings. These people in the movie were people just like me. They just live somewhere else, have some different customs, language, but they are people like me. Somehow, in the organization of the universe, I was deemed to live in the place I do now. I'm lucky, and I've been given much, so I feel that I too must give.

This kind of thinking was the impetus of my trip, this Longboard for Love endeavor  A way I saw that I too can give, especially to the Romanian people I love. A teacher for these abandoned kids can turn a hopeless situation into a wonderful thriving life. I wanted to help, but I also have a hope that my effort can inspire someone else to see that they too have something special and unique to give to the world. Something that the rest of us need. That we can demonstrate some active integrity, mixed in with love, and help one another. Life is too hard to do it alone, and too challenging to make it more difficult for each other.

I feel that as human beings we must help our fellow man. What could the world do if there was a little more love for one another? In Five Broken Cameras the protesters often pleaded to the humanity of the soldiers  Asking if they had family, homes, pity. I wonder what was going on in the minds of the soldiers as they tried to remain stone faced to the terror.

What would the world be like with a little more LOVE?