Pulitzer prizewinner Alice Walker (‘The Color Purple’) just gave a great talk at TEDxRamallah (God bless livestreaming). She was sharp and true from the beginning:
— detained for 9 hours at the Allenby Bridge, she told the Israeli interrogator (yes, she was interrogated): “Do you understand what you’re doing? It’s wrong. Just wrong. And it’s not good for you.”
to the end:
— “Humanity means to show up when we need each other. Just show up. Be there.”
Only thing wrong: it was far too short.
I’ll run the video here as soon as it’s posted on YouTube.
Dear Lesley,
I just wanted to thank you for the beautiful TED talk you gave about the Quran which has been posted and reposted hundreds of times by so many people I know (and I am sure by many other I don’t know). Sometimes it is blessing to hear from others about the faith we live in and maybe take for granted a little while we go about the business of daily worship — though we are supposed to be engaged and moved, it isn’t always so.
And thanks for crossing all sorts of human and imagined borders and reflecting on what is beautiful and moving – -here’s hoping we will all be able to do the same inside and outside our respective faith traditions.
blessings to you
sorry for posting this here, but i don’t know how to contact you.
is this your channel?
http://www.youtube.com/user/LesleyHazelton#p/u
i don’t think so and i notice the different spelling, but i thought i should let you know of its existance. and what it is playing.
There’s several misleadingly titled videos up there using my name, sometimes spelled right and sometimes not. YouTube is not being cooperative about investigating them. Sigh… Please do flag them as ‘misleading text.’ And no, I don’t have a YouTube channel.
done.
I wanted to thank you for the Alice Walker quote (the one beginning with “Humanity…”), which I have typed up big and pretty to go on my desk and remind me to do my job (high school teaching) better. So much of it, as they say, is just showing up. Which you also seem to do better than most. Take care, and many thanks.