Looking for Hope
I have never been able to watch "Schindler's List" from the beginning until the end in one sitting. I have had to watch the drama five or six times to actually see the entire program. The movie causes such swells of emotion that I simply cannot endure the visual experience that portrays such horrific inhumanity by one group against another. The real capability of humanity to lose sight of every moral compass and wander so far afield frightens me to the point where I am unable to continue to watch and reflect on the hows and whys. Yet, the heart of the story reminds us that there were always some people who were willing to push back against pure evil in an attempt to do some good.
I thought of this experience when a friend recommended the documentary "Nicky's Family," which tells the story of an Englishman who helped rescue more than 600 children from Prague at the onset of World War II. It tells the story of what this man did as well as how decades later his actions were discovered and the very children had the opportunity to thank him for all that he had done. Because this story focused on the efforts to rescue and save and spent less time on the actual horrors of war, I was able to watch the program in one sitting. Its hopeful message of the power of good inspired a basic sense of hope for the future of humanity.
For me, this message of the power of doing good dovetailed with the recent exhortation by Pope Francis that challenges us to consider the role of working on the Sabbath. He warned that a society that determines its success and progress using economic measures over human measures is practicing unprofitable self deception. "Maybe it’s time to ask ourselves if working on Sundays is true freedom” he asked. For the world I envision, the answer is self evident as long as we do more than abstain from economic work. The world I see requires that when we do not work for economic means to provide for our necessities and comforts that we are engaged in doing good for others.
In the days of the Holocaust, the excuses of race were used to justify ugly sentiments grounded in simple hatred. The hatred was expressed by using convenient scapegoats of Jews, gypsies and Slavs. It seems important to remember that this hatred was fueled by an apparent scarcity of resources making the argument for their removal and eventual extinction palatable. Right now the similarities between the willingness to disparage and remove others from our borders on the basis of economic scarcity and undocumented entry strike me with a similar fear to the emotions I felt while watching "Schindler's List." Are we really so attached to our comforts from generations of economic prosperity that we have forgotten some of the very lessons we taught by defeating the Nazi machine?
Let us always remember and never forget.
I thought of this experience when a friend recommended the documentary "Nicky's Family," which tells the story of an Englishman who helped rescue more than 600 children from Prague at the onset of World War II. It tells the story of what this man did as well as how decades later his actions were discovered and the very children had the opportunity to thank him for all that he had done. Because this story focused on the efforts to rescue and save and spent less time on the actual horrors of war, I was able to watch the program in one sitting. Its hopeful message of the power of good inspired a basic sense of hope for the future of humanity.
For me, this message of the power of doing good dovetailed with the recent exhortation by Pope Francis that challenges us to consider the role of working on the Sabbath. He warned that a society that determines its success and progress using economic measures over human measures is practicing unprofitable self deception. "Maybe it’s time to ask ourselves if working on Sundays is true freedom” he asked. For the world I envision, the answer is self evident as long as we do more than abstain from economic work. The world I see requires that when we do not work for economic means to provide for our necessities and comforts that we are engaged in doing good for others.
In the days of the Holocaust, the excuses of race were used to justify ugly sentiments grounded in simple hatred. The hatred was expressed by using convenient scapegoats of Jews, gypsies and Slavs. It seems important to remember that this hatred was fueled by an apparent scarcity of resources making the argument for their removal and eventual extinction palatable. Right now the similarities between the willingness to disparage and remove others from our borders on the basis of economic scarcity and undocumented entry strike me with a similar fear to the emotions I felt while watching "Schindler's List." Are we really so attached to our comforts from generations of economic prosperity that we have forgotten some of the very lessons we taught by defeating the Nazi machine?
Let us always remember and never forget.
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