thoughts... probably in the wrong direction...

I don't even know where to start...

I guess I want to say that this is more of a thought process than any kind of definite thought. I'm emotionally spent and here is a product...

We screened "The Greatest Silence" tonight and had Jane Nagy speak. It was really cool and about 20 people came. Success. A few stayed after to write letters and some took templates and said they would write at home.

This documentary was about just one of the terrible horrors that go on everyday, rape. This wasn't just rape, it was rape as a weapon of war. These women live in hell manifested in the DRC. I don't want to try and explain it, just think about the different ways of life.

It is amazing to me that a teenager who was raped and impregnated responded to the question, "What is your greatest hope?" with "To be a nurse." She added something else but I forgot. Anyways, I think it's amazing that she had hope and wanted something so badly that we take for granted, an education.

I dread going to certain classes and waking up and doing my homework but this is the life. Not to say there aren't hardships, but I will never know what it's like to have to go into a forest to get food for my family and risk being violently raped and possibly killed. I'll don't know what it's like to be homeless or to not eat.

It seems so easy to just look the other way, to not think about these things, to not care.

Laura and I went to see Fill in A Memory a Rant and a Monologue and there was this monologue about this girl who would go to parties and talk about these kinds of issues. She would scream and cause a scene and demand to know why they didn't care and why they just kept partying. And she would get thrown out.

I feel like this girl sometimes... I just want to scream at people that talk about clothes and bands and parties and movies and all of this entertainment that we value so much. People are dying and you are rejoicing the Blink 182 got back together.

I can't wrap my head around the idea that there are so many people in the world that are starving, homeless, murdered, tortured, raped, living in poverty, etc. and we don't want to talk about it. We don't want to hear it for obvious reasons and that's fine. That's fine.

What isn't fine is that it is happening and it is absolutely disgusting to me that we can so easily look the other way and pretend that we can't help or that these problems will always exist.

I think there are a lot of people that want to help and there are a lot of people who are helping.

I don't understand why helping people is not more importantly culturally. I want to help these people.

I watch these documentaries and I get sucked into a tiny tiny impression of how they live and when the movie is over, and I look around it's hard to care about anything but these people. It's so hard to see the way I live, the way we all live, the things we worry about, our complaints, our issues, when the issues of these people are just eating, drinking, having a home, and taking care of and protecting their families. They just want the basics to survive.

How did we become so distanced? Why such a huge gap? Why is it ok that people are suffering? It's not ok I know, but why don't we do more? I guess it's a question of what to do. I don't know what to do.

Knowing how I live and knowing how the most unfortunate live is a terribly disturbing feeling for me. It feels wrong.

"In what state of mind was he that he did not feel the pain?"

I don't feel their pain, and I can't, but I know it's there... and I know I can't just save the world, but I think I can feel something.

I want more people that are privileged to care. I want people to come together in mass crowds for human dignity, not for a football game. Well I mean they can still go to the game but why not both? When did entertainment become more important the human life? I know everything has it's place... I just wish human life was higher.

My heart goes out to the suffering and so do my endless prayers.