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Monday, August 29, 2011

Side-by-Side Lives

Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be a hurtful, mean person.  Is you one a them peoples?

Impact.  Powerful.  Tossed around without regard like dust in the air sometimes, those words are.  I am in the middle of reading The Help.  But somehow it happened that Saturday evening was a good time for us to go and see the movie....which I've been waiting for months to see.  This is just my kind'a story.  Personal.  Compelling.  The actual stories of people's lives.  Yours and mine.  They do have merit, you know.....the stories of our lives. 

But one of the things that occurred to me during the movie is the side-by-side lives lived by the folks portrayed in the case.  The parallel lives.  The many pieces of the lives that occurred with each individual over the years that happened in conjunction with one other.  The Help would many times stay with the same white family for years.  Many years....oh say 40 or more years.  The Help would live their own path and life during this 40 years.  And the white family that they worked for would also live their own life during this same 40 years.  Two distinct, varied, very different paths over the same length of time -- running parallel to one another.  Children would come and go, news stories would pass, times would change, political relevance would rise and fall, social interaction would lumber on.  And as individual as these paths are, they are intertwined in so many ways. 

Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, "Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?"

And the fact that this story took place right here under our noses in the US of A really hits home with me.  Perhaps I should say takes place, present tense.  Because it does.  No matter the laws of the land or the regulations in place the dark hearts of the people are difficult to assimilate into the new ages.  Things don't change inside of a person's soul because a political figure tells them to.  I'm ashamed to know that in my lifetime there is hatred for who people are -- not what they have necessarily done or how they've behaved...that's a whole other matter.  But for who they are.  That it takes place in the most powerful nation on earth really irritates me.  Confuses me.  On how we could have ever allowed it to happen.  Whatever it was that prompted white people to actually believe that they could catch colored diseases from the colored people.  And everyone believed it at the time.  And it continues to happen in so many ways even today.  We've got a long, long way to go.  My friend Matt said recently "I think we need to come together on social issues at their core.... Create real social solidarity not this fake wave a flag on flag day and temporary love for all other Americans during a time of crisis, but real solidarity."  He's right on.  


Another piece of this story that hit home with me is how the person who steps out of their comfort zone and stands up for others is the person that should lead this world.  The one who sees a wrong and wants to make it right.  The one who sees the underling being beaten down and berated and wants to do whatever it takes to stand with them.  Every family, every period of time in our globe's history, has one or two of those people.  The ones who refuse to accept for fact what is told to them.  What is shoved down their throat.  What is simply assumed to be reality. The person says, "No," and then goes about making it right.  Do you stand up for the underdog, the one who is treated poorly, the one who needs a comrade?  I try to. 

All I'm saying is, kindness don't have no boundaries.


The stories of our lives are powerful.  I think I said that in the opening paragraph.  And they are.  They are, after all, our stories, our lives.  No one else's.  They may not mean much to anyone else.  But they mean the world to us.  And in just the right time, the right place, and when the moment is tender and available, the stories of our lives fit perfectly into the life of someone else.  They enter someone else's heart, or mind.  They meld and blend.  You can see it on the face of the other person.  They suddenly morph from a blank look of nothingness into a land where the two get it....they know one another .... they understand one another.  The point at which the stories of two people's lives intersect is one of the most influential points during our short years on this planet. 

3 comments:

BosGuy said...

I've yet to see the movie, but I wrote about the book when I read it earlier this year. Its a powerful story that still has a lot of relevance, but isn't that one of the things that makes this such a compelling story?

BosGuy

LSL said...

You've convinced me to read it and see it. Thank you, Lewis! xo

Ur-spo said...

Our first attempt to see the film was blocked; it was sold out. So it seems to be popular. Perhaps its meanings will make a difference somewhere.