Today was better.

M & I decided to watch our latest Netflix movie last night after L went to bed. I wasn’t sure what it was, as he’s the Netflix queue manager. I figured anything that could distract my mind from the evil day had to be good. Ummm…not exactly correct here. It certainly did not cheer me up, but I am very glad I stuck with it. A few minutes into the movie, I was already crying. A few minutes more and I had an upset stomach. I was debating on telling M to turn it off and put something more cheerful on, and then a wave of self-disgust washed over me. Lots of waves, actually.

The movie we watched was a documentary called, God Grew Tired of Us. I found the title itself to be a powerful statement and very, very sad. The movie was absolutely extraordinary, and I can’t strongly encourage you enough to WATCH THIS DOCUMENTARY. Again, as I’ve stated before, it is the absolute least you can do. I consider myself to be quite aware of world issues and try very hard to stay on top of everything. I thought I was familiar with the multiple horrific wars and the fallout in Africa, but nothing I had read or studied had prepared me for the depths of despair these children experienced.

It follows “The Lost Boys of Sudan”. I, too, understand the nightmare of living as a refugee, but again, nothing I thought I understood prepared me for this experience. Here I was contemplating turning this movie off, because I had a “bad” day and wanted to feel better, when these CHILDREN had lived through more than a decade of …really, there are simply no words to convey what these humans endured at the hands of other humans.

I also pride myself on being a strong person who can handle anything. Nothing I have gone through in my life (and my life has not been a cake walk) can, in the remotest sense, even be compared to one day in the lives of these children. How could I even contemplate turning them off, because the suffering they lived through caused me too much discomfort? We watched it to the end.

That this situation ever occurred in our history is a tragedy. That it has occurred countless times, in countless places, and still goes on, is unimaginable. The one recurring thought I had throughout the movie is one that lives in my head all the time: I don’t want to be in a world where things like this happen. I just don’t care to exist in a place where such cruelty and apathy abounds. I also couldn’t help feeling even more hopeless for the animals. If we can routinely allow things like this to happen to humans, animals don’t stand a chance!

I want so much to be able to help these people, but how?! Why can’t all of us just live in such a way that we are dedicated to ending suffering. If our world, or even just our country, would change the paradigm from one of “each man for himself” to “we are all one, and one’s suffering is our own”, life could be so beautiful!

I was going to have L watch this and then loan it to my parents & Dej, but Mr. Netflix had it all packaged and sent out before I got up this morning. I checked our local library, which has a copy On Shelf, so I’ll just pick that up next time we go. I urge all of you to watch this in its entirety. It is amazing, life changing. I cried a lot. I laughed a lot. It’s not all a downer—the love, the family, the indomitable spirit of these people, the reunions—there are many moments of pure joy, even humor.

I now feel even more motivated to keep fighting in any way possible for those who most need our help—animals and humans. Despite what so many of the small-minded may believe, these two causes are not mutually exclusive, and most AR people are also human rights champions. I know there are some refugees being settled in Rockford (our little friend, Sonja’s group), and I wonder if there is anything I could do to help somehow there. Most importantly, though, we all need to watch this, so we all get motivated to really speak out and get the U.S. and the U.N. to step it up and intervene in these situations. I guess there isn’t enough oil in Africa for us to care about those people. In a country where so many of us have so much, we have absolutely no right to sit on our complacent asses and do nothing. The annual guilt-relieving donation (tax break) that is provided in the form of a check to some organization is not enough anymore. It’s going to take a lot more than our standard annual donation to make this world better. We need committed fighters!

I'm anxious for someone else to watch it! There was a statement in the movie, toward the end, that actually caused me to yell, "You have got to be fucking kidding!" , about the U.S. I really want to know if this is as shocking and appalling to others as it was to me.