Expanding the Heart

Whenever I start to write a blog, I wish to accomplish a couple of things: share something that people enjoy reading, such as a nice event, an exciting trip, or even topics like inner peace and peacebuilding.

But often, dark subjects hover in my mind. These dark subjects might be books, like “Born a Crime”, which is Trevor Noah’s story of how he grew up as a “colored” (because he was not fully black) in South Africa. His stories help see up-close the cruelty and tragedy of apartheid. And he tells it with his classic wit yet a sharp and sarcastic message, which I really appreciate.

Or it could be movies like “The Swimmers” about two Syrian refugees who escape the violence in Syria, and undertake the life-threatening journey to get to Germany; their swimming skills literally save them and their fellow refugees; they encounter danger and deception all along the way. However, once there, one of them is able to get a swimming coach and goes on to win at the Olympics as part of a “refugee swimming team”; later on her family joins her in Germany.

Another movie is “The Flood” about an Eritrean who makes it to France across the sea, and then tries to get to the UK. Along the way, he meets a Pakistani young couple, who helps him; the husband dies of sickness along the way, but the pregnant wife makes it to the UK. I won’t spoil the movie’s end about what happens to him, but…