Most Compassionate

Manandchild
Originally uploaded by ALifeAllah.

Peace,
In this society it is hard to cultivate compassion. Compassion is “deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.” When you historically look at original cultures and even present day original peoples world wide you can find a legacy of compassion. We see it in how our grand old Earths take in everyone for Sunday dinners. We see it in how the Wampanoag gave charity to the settlers in the ‘new world’. We see it in the BEST times of gift giving and thanksgiving. Yet, as I stated in the beginning, in THIS society it is hard to cultivate compassion because this society reinforces a value of capricious individualism and “get them before they get you” attitude. It is hard to reinforce the original ideal that “I am because you are” and that we are a Nation, a people.

Sometimes my son, I-Victory, gets me up hella early on Sunday. A few Sundays ago there was this show on television about children with cleft palettes. Now, a few years ago I didn’t know anything about cleft palettes until his mother got into a surgical tech program and make Knowledge Born. Now, I was of the mind to change the channel yet was like, “I want to watch that.” So we did.

Many times we want to ‘shield’ our children from the horrors of the world. Little do we realize that they are well equipped to handle many things if they are in the right intellectual environment to process these things. I mean the children whom have cleft palette have to develop an Understanding as to what they are dealing with so why can’t other children without cleft palette develop a parallel Understanding.

With that said I realized that there are many movies out there about the suffering of children worldwide by which I could orient I-Victory (and myself) as to the sufferings of others. It is also a great means of measurement in terms of realizing that one should be thankful as to where they are presently in space/time.

This is a list of some movies that may spark a great discussion between you and your child:

Born in Brothels
Rabbit Proof Fence
China’s Lost Girls
4 Little Girls

Peace