Gratitude & freedom... [#79-90}

Yesterday at PORTICO we had a movie screening of Freedom Fighter, the story of Rev. Majed El Shafie, himself once tortured for his Christian faith in Egypt, now the president and founder of One Free World International, fighting for those persecuted for their faith all over the world.

Here is a clip from the movie...



It's far too easy to live in religious freedom and think else everyone shares the same freedoms that we do. This moving film is designed to move those of us with all the freedom in the world to speak out for those who do not.

One way to get involved is to join the One Million Voices campaign. The way I see it, I have paid so very little for my own freedom, how could I not expend my energy and resources on behalf of those who have not been so blessed?

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...and the gratitude list continues...

79. friends who push me to my dreams even when I doubt yourself.

80. a job that I love.

81. coffee. Starbucks. enough said.

82. going to sleep on Friday night and not turning the alarm on.

83. delightful little Italian pastries.

84. Rosamunde Pilcher's 'Winters Solstice' and beginning it again for at least the 24th time.

85. the balance of accomplishing things I didn't expect to and nothing I wanted to.

86. a strong, well-timed message I needed to hear.

87. summer roasted vegetables on a cold day.

88. walking into Starbucks and being greeted by my favorite baristas, who already know what I want.

89. curling up in my cozy bed with my Kobo in my hand, and Charlotte Martin's Piano Trees in my ears.

90. the simple, yet under-appreciated fact that by living in Canada, I have the gift and freedom of worshiping my God freely and without fear.

what can you do?

my favorite saturday night thing to do is to have my friends alicia & erynne over. these 'movie nights' usually begin with one of us going through my not small DVD collection to narrow it down to three choices. then from the three choices, we pick one, and that is our movie du nuit.

tonight, an unusual thing happened...we watched a something that none of us had seen before. tonight's movie was water. set in india in 1938, the movie starts with an eight-year old girl, Chuyia, who is married to a man 50 years older than her. the man dies, and Chuyia is sent to live with other widows, most of whom are closer to a century old than to Chuyia's eight years.

to go to heaven at the end of their lives, these women must live chaste, pure, ascetic lives... even if their husbands died while they were still children. when her father asked her about her wedding, young Chuyia didn't even remember being married, then suddenly she was thrown into a world of shaven heads, colorless clothing and exile among other widows.

i won't give the plot away, because if you haven't seen the movie, do so. but what i will say, is that this movie, along with recently reading a thousand splendid suns, as well as the reading and research provided by the international justice mission, has opened my eyes to so many of the injustices that women all over the world have to face every day... things that i and most of my friends, have never had to worry or even think about. things, that if i'm honest, i don't really want to think about, because they are uncomfortable, and i would prefer to live in a world where these things did not exist.

but they do exist, and turning a blind eye to known injustice is a coward's way out. we cannot all go to thailand to rescue young girls from a life of forced prostitution, or to kenya to help put an end to female genital mutilation, but we who have so much need to not do anything, simply because we cannot do everything.

what can you do?