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One of my best friends, Tracy, helped direct this 20 minute short film called The Butterfly Circus. It's a story about hope, a man without limbs, and a circus that inspires.
You can watch it full screen here: http://www.thedoorpost.com/hope/The Butterfly Circus/
At the height of the Great Depression, the showman of a renowned circus leads his troupe through the devastated American landscape, lifting the spirits of audiences along the way. During their travels they discover a man without limbs at a carnival sideshow, but after an intriguing encounter with the showman he becomes driven to hope against everything he has ever believed.
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| Nguyen Dat Ha was never my name. It was the name written down by the Saigon hospital official where I was born. The Chinese characters of my name were not going to be written on the Vietnamese birth certificate nor would they translate to English when I came to the United States 11 months later.
Lam is my mother's maiden name. It is the name which on the day of my wedding I told my mother I would carry on with my wife. It is the name my children will carry in honor of my mother who raised three children up on her own after my father left when I was three years old.
I was never called Nguyen by anyone who knew me. Since fifth grade I introduced myself by my middle name or by "Win." A Vietnamese classmate told me I was mispronouncing my name. But I explained to him it was not my name, just the name written for me. Besides, I could never pronounce it the correct way. I could barely pronounce words correctly in my own native language, Cantonese.
Win Dat Lam is now my legal name. It has always been my real name. | | |
| Melody and I have a little apartment in Alhambra that we call home. One feature of our home is that we do not have a television.
In finding an apartment and planning the layout, we tried to envision what we want our home to do for us instead of simply letting Ikea tell us what each room should look like. So instead of having a living room built around a media center, we planned our living room to be conducive to evening conversations over tea. And we wanted a second bedroom to convert to a study room so our master bedroom would be free from our MacBooks. Instead of having separate desks in the study room we share a table so that we can be closer even when we're working on different things.
The space may feel small at times and I surely miss catching Lakers games, but our home feels very intimate and we love it. And maybe not having a television will force us to go out and visit friends more. Hopefully Daisy will let us walk on over to her place to watch The Office on her new TV. :)
Also bumped into an interesting research article with data showing that unhappy people watch more television. Not sure which is the cause and which is the effect.
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/sociss/release.cfm?ArticleID=1789
From the General Social Survey, the researchers found that self-described very happy people were more socially active, attended more religious services, voted more and read more newspapers. By contrast, unhappy people watched significantly more television in their spare time.
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| I want to be the father that I never had. My mother slaved away for years to care for the three children that her husband left behind. If GOD blessed me with a family, there is no desire deeper in my heart than to be the husband and father to my wife and children that my mom never had. What man
would not want to provide well for his family? What man would not want
security and comfort for his wife and children?
Then he said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
I love the job that I currently have. I love organizing and
administration. I have wonderful coworkers and flexible hours. I get
to keep my work at work so I can focus on life after 5 o'clock each
day. I have the best health care found anywhere west of the Mississippi
River. I have upward mobility and great job stability. I have a great
workplace and close proximity to many friends. I love being able to write on Xanga at work.
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
The values that a person holds dictates the decisions that a person
makes. But sometimes there are competing values. And it is not a
matter of discerning between good and evil, but discerning what is
best. Indecisiveness often
comes when you are not sure what it is that you
value more. It is at those moments of indecisiveness that you must
choose not just what you will do but what you will value more.
What good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit your very self?
I want to be a man who fights for justice and reconciliation. I want to be a man who
serves the least in our society. I want to be a man whose life is a testament to GOD's
love and mercy. Not just in rhetoric but in deed. Not just one day a week but
every day of the week. Not just to those who already know his love but
to those who are desperate for his love but have yet to accept it.
GOD has given me a
heart for the homeless, for the abused, and for the poor. I would love
to have a job where GOD can use this heart he has given me. At the
same time, I have huge debt and little savings. How can I even dream
of providing for a family when I cannot pay off my debt and move out on
my own?
If any of you are ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
These weigh heavily on my heart of late. I often stress and lose sleep
because of my lack of faith here. Is it true that GOD provides? Is it
true that GOD protects? Is it true that no one who has left home or
brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for Jesus
and for the gospel will not fail to receive a hundred times as much in this
present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and
fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life?
GOD has always proven
true to his word in my life before. Yet I am still not the man of
faith and conviction whom I hope to be. Please, be patient with me
on this journey.
"Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God."
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| [29 April 1992]
“Wake up!” my mom frantically yelled. Still in bed, I opened my eyes wondering why the lights were on in the middle of the night. “Hurry! Put on some clothes, we have to leave!” My brother and sister were already getting dressed, but I was still half-asleep. I got out of bed and casually started dressing when the electricity went out. The urgency finally hit me as I looked for some clothes under the light of the bright red flames. We ran out of our house into the cold night.
It was just a couple days before that the fires started. First it was a few cars, and then liquor stores and entire shopping centers were up in flames. I lived by the intersection of Western and Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd near the heart of South Central. I could open the windows and hear the uprising as it unfolded. The events that followed the “not-guilty” verdict of the four police officers who beat Rodney King on a Los Angeles freeway quickly exploded into chaos.
It was breaking news on all the local television channels. The verdict was released and immediately a protest was organized in Downtown Los Angeles. “Almost the entire police force is in Downtown,” the news reporters kept repeating to me as I sat on the couch in my living room. The first cars were set on fire and the news switched back and forth between the protest and the erupting violence on Florence and Normandie Ave. You could see police standing guard in Downtown while in South Central cars were being turned over and burned without a police officer in sight.
I was just a curious ten year-old, and maybe I was too young to understand. But I remember asking why news reporters would tell us that police officers were not around to stop looters in South Central. The reports were fanning the flames of violence and I thought it was outrageous. ‘Why are they telling people this?’ I asked in disbelief.
Did the news reporters know what they were doing?
I thought it would be over soon. But the spark was lit and the city was fast in flames. I looked out and saw smoke filling the air in every direction I turned.
I watched the television to see a supermarket three blocks from my house with its windows broken and people looting. Then I stepped out my front door and saw people coming back with shopping carts loaded with food and house supplies. I turned off the television and stood out on my front porch for a while to watch the drama unfold. I saw my neighbor, the only white man in our neighborhood, standing out on his lawn with a pistol in his hand.
It was a warm sunny day outside but I decided to come back inside instead. My family stayed in our house in fear. It was the safest place we could be.
There was a small market adjacent to our house on the other side of the block. Once we ran out of our house, I saw the fire from the market burning bright in the night. I could see red fire burning a hundred feet into the air and grey smoke reaching even further up to the clouds. The night was cold but I could feel the heat from the fire warm my cheeks. We stood across the street alongside neighbors and listened to the fire crackle and the crashing sound of the market crumbling. We listened for hours and hours until finally the sound of sirens came to extinguish what was left of the fire. By the time the firefighters came there was nothing left of the market but ashes.
Why did it take them so long to respond?
Morning came and our house was safe. The heat from the fire was close enough to melt the roof on our garage. But the fire reached no closer than that. We came back home, locked every door and waited for the uprising to end.
It had been going on for days and still no sign of relief. Every hour I watched the local news show police officers stand aside as businesses were looted and burned. After a couple of days I heard whispers on the television of the National Guard coming to restore order in Los Angeles. The governor had the power to call them in, but he waited. Four days of burnings and killings before the National Guard was called in and the drama was ended.
I had thought the four police officers would be found guilty by the justice system. I had thought the police would stop the violence, but they stood by innocently as the city erupted. I had thought our police chief, our governor; someone would stop South Central from being burned and destroyed.
It was a rude awakening.
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