A bit about love

I have started to listen to the radio less and turn on the Mormon Chanel on my car journeys to and from work. Mainly to increase my spirituality and fill my head and soul with more wholesome material. After all, we are what we consume.

I was listening to a show where they were interviewing a singer/songwriter who said her grandfather who is less in touch with his feelings didn't say the words 'I love you'. I can relate to this. While I do often (but maybe not often enough) tell my wife I love her, I don't tell my parents. My makes a thing of it, which now makes it harder.

In my church we sometimes say it. Not very often though. Yet the 1st two commandments are all about love, showing exactly how important this principle is.

We know that actions speak louder than words and that couldn't be more true when it comes to love. You can say 'I love you' all you want, but unless it is backed up by action nobody will believe you. On the flip side, while it is nice to hear, it isn't necessarily essential to say. If you regularly prove it with action, kind deeds, help, gifts, kindness etc then those actions are the words. However, I suppose sometimes, or maybe often, those actions are not translated correctly.

In my church a lot of people do a lot of things for other people. There are people serving all over the place, some direct service and some indirect service. I hope that if each act of service could be vocalised we would hear the words 'I love you' regularly in our church community.

A little Pleasure

Pretty much all jobs in my church are voluntary, unpaid and are carried out in addition to all the other responsibilities of life including full time work. This includes bishops, teachers, group leaders and even missionary work.

My current responsibility is to run a series of self help classes (Self Reliance classes). It can be exhausting serving in the church. Sometimes you don't want to do it.you are tired, there are jobs that need doing at home, or another reason could simply be because I'd rather go home to my dinner.

Every Thursday I'm giving up an evening to help some fellow members. We were discussing education. And I was talking to a guy called John. john want to train to be a joiner. He's into his 50's and does not own a computer or use the internet. I had the idea to show him some of the virtues of the internet. There is lots of learning to be found there. I pulled up you tube and searched 'joinery' and was able to show him a load of training videos about his subject. When I showed him I saw something that I wasn't expecting. Something that made the sacrifice of my dinner that evening worth it.

He smiled. He grinned. He was amazed & delighted that such information is available to him and anyone to help him improve. It was a pleasure to whiteness.

Imagine feeling unsafe all the time. Living in a constant state of fear.

An estimated 1/5 million people have perrised in this civil war. Imagine living in a country where every major city is a target for civil unrest and highly likely to be bombed at any moment. Half your city has been destroyed already. You would feel unsafe outside, and you would feel unsafe indoors. Nowhere is safe. Naturally, you would choose to leave.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/14/world/middleeast/syria-war-deaths.html?_r=0

Hungary is earning a bad name for itself.

This is upsetting.

Migrant crisis: People treated 'like animals' in Hungary camp

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34216883

The short of it is that Hungary seems to have a very cold attitude towards the migrants/refugees. They are receiving a lot of bad press about how they are making life for them even harder by fencing off the boarders, collecting people to take them to registration posts rather than escorting them across the country and there was even a report of a Hungarian camera woman/journalist tripping up a father carrying a child as they were rushing to avoid the rather brutal police.

This article has a video which shows the conditions of one of these registration points. The most disturbing thing most people will notice is a policeman throwing sandwiches to the refugees. I'm not saying this is the case but it very much portrays the impression that this policeman is treating these people like lesser humans, like animals. He clearly has a pride issue. I also notice that none of his fellow workers stop him. While they are not throwing the food, they are not stopping him. They have also chosen to not order the people into lines and ask for civility but instead allowed a scene of chaos to ensue, further supporting the idea, though less obviously, that all these men (policemen) are treating these refugees poorly.

The article compares the scene to a concentration camp. And it is hard to then not compare the policemen in this video to Nazis. They may not realise it themselves, but I'd hope if they were to review their behaviour they would see why they are being compared in this way. I'm sure nobody would want to be compared to a Nazi, and I'm also sure these policemen and other Hungarian leadership have very ill feelings towards Hitler and his regime, so I really do hope they change their behaviour very soon, otherwise people might start reading about the Nazi like/concentration camp behaviour in history books in future.

I'm appalled at the apparent inhumanity that this video conveys. I sincerely hope that that this is an isolated case and there are other locations throughout Hungary where the migrants are generally treated a lot better.

Devastated Syria

A few articles have been showing the conditions the refugees are fleeing from. This BBC report shows the devistation.

Syria: Snapshot of life inside Assad stronghold

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34192568

Summarising the crisis.

It should be quite clear to any reader by now that I am captivated by the migrant/refugee crisis at the moment. It leaves me feeling mixed emotions. It reminds me how incredibly blessed I am to have many things that enables my wife and I to raise our son, while at the same time, that sense of gratitude comes at the expense of learning about the incredible misfortune of other families. I am moved to dispense some of my excess and give to those struggling.

I do already regularly give to a number of charities. I have donated monthly for a number of years now. But while this crisis is ongoing I feel compelled to find a way to donate directly to this humanitarian crisis.

I also feel the need to understand the overall picture of what is happening. My interest comes years after this all started. I have just come across this BBC article which explains a few things.

Migrant crisis: Nine key moments from the last year

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34173972

The problem of corse is that I am at the mercy of the media for information. I need to trust that they are reporting accurately.

Also, my research could potentially go very deep if I let it. I don't need to understand every bit of detail,but I do feel like I'm still quite ignorant of the whole situation.

I will add other articles as I come across them.

Another Photo that fills me with pitty

Here we see a mum carrying a son that appears to be younger than my own 3 month old. She appears to have only one back pack which probably contains all of here and her sons belongings. I cannot see a husband and father in the picture. He may have already passed the photographer or may be the chap adjacent in the background. Or this mother may be travelling alone.

I will try to find a better quality image.

I know how hard it is to look after a new baby. Yesterday I had the worst headache I have had for a while. I knew I still had to get home and look after my boy despite how rough I was feeling. Parents hate seeing their children cry. They want to comfort them. My wife and I have a range of tools we can use to settle him. This mother seems to just have her back pack. Presumably in this back pack is everything she can carry for him and for her. She's going to a truffle to keep him happy.

Carying a baby on a long journey is also going to be incredibly hard. A child's this young, can't even sit up straight, they are incredibly vulnerable and need constant care and attention. They can't eat solid foods and depend on mothers milk or formula feeding many times a day. This mother will have to be feeding him while on the move. And this is not a journey of an hour or two. This is days, possibly weeks.

A picture is worth a thousand words. But it is only a snapshot in time. It doesn't tell the whole story, our imaginations will create that story based on what we have learned already. I can only imagine how challenging this time is for everyone leaving their destroyed communities to search for a new place to settle.