Recently Soph and I went to the cinemas and as usual I had minimal input in this as things tend to be organised by the girls whilst I'm out and about and upon returning home, I am informed of the plans for the rest of the evening. This is something that I am starting to accept more willingly as it forces me to go places I would not normally go on my own accord, it forces me to interact with people that if left to me I would steer clear of and it forces me to sit through movies I would not have selected.
Admittedly this has forced me through some dribble like New Moon when I'd rather line up for Robbin hood, 300 and Avatar. However sitting through films I have not chosen has even been as powerful as seeing friends come to Faith after watching Paranormal Activity.
This particular time was Sandra Bullocks latest The Blind Side. Not complaining to loudly as I am a fan of Bullock however I doubt if left to my own choices I would have bothered with the film. I now highly recomend it. Its a fantastic film, based on a true story and real people, it pulls at heart strings and displays the love the human race is supposed to have.
A large black boy has no home, no family and no friends. He does not ask for help but a wealthy woman and her family offer him a couch to sleep on. She invites him into her home and eventually into her family and assist him through school until he gets to play football for one of the big universities in the USA.
In recent times my immediate group of friends have raised some amazing discussions after some of these movies and this was no different. The question came up "If it were you, would you do the same?". If we were the Mum in this story (Leigh Anne Tuohy) would we offer the same love to Michael?.
Every one was so quick to say yes. We all believe that at our core we are good people, we all believe that given the same opportunity we would do the same for any other human in need. But would we?. Say we really were there, we had a huge house, secure job, every material item we ever wanted. We had a ten year old son and a fourteen year old daughter and we stumble across an enormous African American man, we don't know a thing about him, his motives his morals his past. Would you invite him into your house and family at this risk of him abusing the love you showed. The question even came up in the conversation, "does the fact that the person in need is a colored man change anything?" again a chorus of no. I believe it does. At our core humans have no difficulty falling into the trap of racism. Someone is different, there fore how easy is it to discriminate. So be honest with yourself and ask the question given the same chance would you do the same for this boy?
The conversation still echoed Yes. Why? because we are good people at heart. We love to see those less fortunate get a break from their hard life We all want to see people get out of hardship we don't want to see homeless on our streets, we don't want to see a family fall apart, or kids drop out of school to become nothing. In our hearts most people want to see a positive change in our world .
We then blow if off with comments like "I wish I had the chance to help someone" or "I can't do anything its not a problem around here". Both of these are comments that arose in our discussion. Michael Oher is a symbol and is a symbol in our life, if we claim to really want to make a difference, if we answered yes when asked would we have given Michael Oher the same chance Leigh Anne Tuohy did, then we need to act on it.
World vision, The Oak Tree Foundation, Baptist World Aid, Amnesty International, Anglicare and Mission Australia are all organisations that operate out of our local area to help those in need both overseas and here in Sydney. One objection to these groups is "its not personal". Time to question your motives who are you really doing this for. Its Bloody personal for the people at the other end receiving the much needed aid. We can be a Leigh Anne Tuohy for someone. We can be their hero.
