When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

Ever since I watched the documentary Trouble the Water, I have been intrigued by the accounts of Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath as represented by sources other than our mainstream media. I vividly remember the descriptions of what was taking place and the sensationalistic nature of a city where all hell had broken loose and it seemed that people had reverted to animalistic behavior, as detailed on the incessant news coverage.

Enter director Spike Lee and others like him who have given a more realistic and humane version of the events.

There seems to be a consistent theme to all of these documentaries and first-hand eyewitness accounts: It was not our government that stepped in to aid the people who desperately needed rescuing. No, it was the neighbors, first responders and surrounding community members who had also lost everything that were floating refrigerators filled with children, busting holes in rooftops and wading through chest high, toxic muck to save each other.

And this is what I always come back to when I hear stories like these. Our media feeds us a constant and steady diet of racially degrading and demeaning stories like gang violence and the fear-mongering that accompanies such hype. But in the inner city neighborhoods of some of our most beautiful U.S. locations, when the chips are down and even the government that we have been taught to place all of our hope in doesn't show up, and because they consistently have lived a life knowing they can't depend on anyone but themselves...our inner city communities put we suburbanites  to shame when it comes to taking care of each other.

Even in the midst of the worst natural disaster our country has ever seen...hope, compassion and love swam through the streets of New Orleans. 

And it wasn't trucked in by FEMA.

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When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts can now be seen on Amazon Prime.

This Disgusts Me

Came across this article today regarding Pat Robertson and a documentary about his fundraising efforts for the refugee people of Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. PLEASE know where the money you are giving is actually going...especially if the organization claims to be charitable...or Christian. No wonder our culture turns away from the gospel we proclaim, when self-promoting leaders cozy up to men committing human rights violations and oppression of their own people, in order to make a profit raping the land of its natural resources.

I have had no respect for Robertson for many years, but this truly makes me ill. I am certain his supporters could claim that this is all fabricated...but as Christians we are called to live above reproach, (a lifestyle that could leave no doubt as to Whom we serve)...in a manner that only glorifies God...not ourselves.

Born Into Brothels

I first saw this movie about three to four years ago. I had a friend who recently had a very raw experience ministering to brothel "families" in Haiti and I recommended it to her. I watched it again just a few days ago, not out of some morbid sense of placating my sometimes guilt of being so blessed...no, this documentary is an amazing, rare, look into a world most of us could never imagine...but need to know exists.

Exactly as the title suggests, the story centers around children who are literally Born Into Brothels. Photographer Zana Briski had established part-time residency in the red light district of Calcutta, India, in an attempt to win the trust of the prostitutes she wanted to photograph. She wanted to learn about their lives and record it for others. But what she quickly realized, and had not considered prior to this endeavor, was the overwhelming number of children who live everyday in the same red light district as their mothers and fathers that are earning a living selling their bodies, alcohol or drugs.

Briski decided to give the kids a chance to record life from their own perspective. Some of the photography from the kids is hauntingly beautiful and it is shared throughout the film.

Eventually, Briski works with other organizations, boarding schools and even art dealers to exhibit and sell the children's photographs in an attempt to fund an education for the children.

She realistically knows they need to go to boarding schools, because to remain in the neighborhood is certain doom. Yet, as I've been learning, sometimes you throw love at people...and they just don't believe they deserve it and cannot foresee a life different than the one they have. While working with other children prior to the making of the film, some of Briski's students were forced into "working the line" and she knows without drastic intervention all of these students are headed for the same destiny.

I highly encourage you to watch the movie and learn about a life you could hardly imagine and that there are people in this world...who without any claim to even doing it for religious reasons...dare to make a difference in the life of a child.

Born Into Brothels is free to watch on topdocumentaryfilms.com

Energy!

I found this poster of plant energy, also known as photosynthesis (even though it's spelled wrong at the top), and thought it is precisely what I needed to use to convey the message of energy found in plant foods.

Think about it...following the diagram above...plants use the sun, and water to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and life that we need. All the goodness of the sun and rainwater, plus, the plant's own amazing concoction of chlorophyll and chemicals is all trapped inside it's little plant cell walls. So why wouldn't that be exactly what your body needs for health, energy and life?

And here's what is happening to my body as I fill it with all of this life-giving energy...I become more energetic too. Granted, I can't run a marathon...yet...but I haven't trained for one either. What I am capable of is with 5 to 6 hours of sleep, not getting groggy and needing a mid-afternoon Starbucks to get me through the day. No joke, I've had only 5 to 6 hours of sleep each night for the past week and the only time I've not felt rested was the two or three when I had processed, refined food (even in small amounts) the day before. Cheese or any dairy, white flour, white sugar and meat are your enemy if you want more energy.

In documentaries like Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead or other juicing testimonials I've watched on YouTube, the common symptom of juicing that blows people away is the overabundance of energy they have and have never experienced before. Don't believe me? Give it a try!

Now, while I'm slowly building up my workout routine (because my body has been abused for far too long), I'm not signing up for any 5Ks, 10Ks, etc. Those are hopefully down the not-too-distant road. But what I am doing is keeping up with my friend's 10 month old baby everyday, household chores, walks to the grocery store and purging my house of unneeded items...all without feeling like I'm going to collapse at dinner time.

For now...I'll take it!

Food Matters

Absolutely!

And with this juice fast, I have been trying to remind myself of that often. I've watched this documentary several times and learn something new with each viewing. It was even one of the first places I heard of the Gerson Therapy for healing cancer and other chronic diseases.

If you're tired of treating symptoms and want to get to the heart of healing and healthy living, watching this is a great place to start. It's currently available on Netflix and you can watch the first 40 minutes free at their website, http://www.foodmatters.tv/

"Trouble the Water"

Watched this documentary on Netflix a couple of nights ago. I won't say a lot about it because it just makes me too angry when I discuss the disparity between how the rich and the poor are treated in our country. While I found the treatment of the poor horribly wrong in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I was still surprised while watching this documentary.to what lengths government agencies appeared to have intentionally forgotten them!

Toward the end of the movie, the female in the couple it follows throughout says something very profound. A few weeks after Katrina, she and her husband head to Memphis to live with extended family, but they later return to New Orleans because he never graduated from high school so he can't get the big paying jobs in Memphis that you need to be educated for...the jobs that "pay $10 an hour". (That's right, that's about $20,800 a year!) And Kim (his wife) makes the observation that she's glad they went to Memphis, it showed them how people in different places do things...that they (the people in Memphis) are preparing themselves to be educated, or just find a way to improve their lives. Kim adds, 'I don't know, down here it's like they're preparing us for prison or something.'

And we who sit comfortable in our suburban homes with plenty of food, opportunities for education and the ability to achieve whatever we set our minds to, wonder why "they" don't just take the opportunity to improve their lives and break the cycle of poverty. Maybe because their whole lives they never knew there was a whole other world out there where people are actually encouraged to improve themselves. Maybe they just need someone to believe that they can be more than just another drug-related statistic or welfare recipient. Maybe I'd better stop before this becomes a full-blown rant against how we ignore poverty.

But DO watch this documentary and ask yourself how much faith and trust you put in government agencies taking care of you in times of trouble. These people that we call "poor", shame me in how they opened up their home and their lives to total strangers, offered them their last scraps of food, rescued them from flooding and transported them to safety when the government agencies weren't coming to rescue them. I pray if widespread devastation ever comes to us that we will be willing to do the same!