The above title describes the effect the documentary, Girl Rising, had on me. I saw it for the first time last Friday night at UVA. My dear friend, Patty who met me there along with others, thought my description was poetic, but I did not know if I could find the words to follow it.
I felt stirred and so did my 11 year old daughter who was probably the youngest person in attendance. At dinner afterwards I wanted to know how the movie affected her. She replied honestly, “I don’t know, Mom. I have never had to fight for my education, but it makes me want to do something for those who do.”
All weekend I felt unsettled – in a torrent of emotions and thoughts – coming to grips of the plight of millions of girls across the globe who have limited or no access to education, which engenders a vicious cycle of poverty, oppression, sexual violence and disease. Patty’s reaction was more evolved than mine – hers was one of resolute determination. It struck me that what moves people to decisive action truly springs from the heart and soul.
Let me introduce two of the nine girls. My daughter and I fell in love with all of them, but in particular…Wadley from Port-au-Prince won our hearts; the following girls also grieved them:
For me it was Amina from Afghanistan. “Amina is constrained by Afghan society, confined by her gender and expected only to serve men. But this child bride (11) has had enough. She is determined to reject the limitations prescribed by society and to lead others to do the same.” Her own mother wept at her birth – whether it was fear of retribution from her husband that she did not have a son or heartbreak, knowing the life her daughter was destined to lead – it did not matter. The mother felt unspeakable sorrow, not joy. I simply lost it at that point.
For my daughter it was was Suma from Nepal. “Though her brothers go to school, Suma is forced into bonded labor at age 6. The Nepali girl endures years of sorrow by writing beautiful music and gets a glimpse of freedom when she learns to read. Now, she uses her education in a fight to free other girls.” Suma wrote music to express her deepest pain and suffering and later this, “Change is like a song you can’t hold back.” Tears welled in my eyes as we sang a rockin’ version on Sunday of Blessed Assurance (yes, it’s possible), the chorus to which is: This is my story. This is my song. I considered that a story is not a song until it’s told, and the story creates change.
What moved the girls in the film to be courageous – to act in spite of fear – and in some cases, to do the unthinkable in their cultures? Anne Lamott talks about how we discover who we are by finding out what we are not. What courage is not is a sense of duty which can ultimately bind and limit us.
Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest writes, “We are not told to walk in the light of our conscience or in the light of a sense of duty but to ‘walk in the light as He is in the light’ (I John 1:7) When we do something out of sense of duty, it is easy to explain the reasons for our actions to others.” But when we do what our soul requires us to do, it is not easy to explain our actions to others.
Chambers continues, “We become prideful and arrogant…thinking we know what todo in every situation.” Knowing we do not, leads to humility and breathless expectation. This requires faith. For each girl it was not necessarily faith in God, but in something larger than herself, and I believe it was God who gave each of them an extraordinarily brave heart which led them out of bondage to freedom.
What inspires courage in us to respond to causes in order to help, and even save, something or someone else? In my view these causes must have faces. My cause, “Life is Hope Orphanage” in Haiti, has many faces including Chrislande, Marc Herold, Sou Sou and Jacques. These children dance inside my chest, as per Rumi, and beckon me to return to them.
Yet what about cancer, education, pollution, poverty or whatever you care most deeply about? Can we access the soulful places beneath duty and moral obligation to respond to things or people in need or are we too busy, numb and addicted to…ourselves? Can we respond without fanfare and public recognition? If we can, we can be nearly certain that is not the call of duty, but of the Divine.
I recently heard the following in church: that which God requires is ultimately most satisfying. As we allow our hearts to be burdened and to respond to the faces, the stories and the truth, let us go forth with courage as well as humility.
For it is not the world’s spotlight, but the perfect light of God, which is ultimately most illuminating.
