Regular readers will recall that I wrote about the amazing and wondrous story of Charles Everett Ellis, as told in The Barber’s Diaries here (a year ago) and here (in September this year).
My good friend David Henderson tells me he has been working with the indie film makers Outpost Worldwide to revise the video story treatment. The new treatment is now up on YouTube. It’s introduced by film-maker Kevin Willmott.
Please watch this video!
Do please watch this video. It is very inspiring and the new treatment really brings out the moral message of Charles Ellis’s life. Ellis believed very strongly in sticking to moral principle, even when to do so would make his life less comfortable – or possibly even downright dangerous.
A message for today
Now, if some of the bankers and financial finaglers whose greed contributed to the collapse of some of the world’s best known financial institutions and, consequently, to the global economic downturn, had stuck to principle we might be in a rather different place than we are right now.
Charles Ellis’s message is one we really need to hear right now, if we are to avoid repeating the disastrous errors we are making in the way we govern our world. It may seem old fashioned to those who have lived through the “money is king” decades, but, believe me, it’s the medicine a sick world needs.
The remedy for the world’s sickness
I think this quotation from the Writings of Baha’u'llah sums up the unholy mess we’ve gotten ourselves into and how we might get out of it:
The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.
We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed with great, with incalculable afflictions. We see it languishing on its bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned. They that are intoxicated by self-conceit have interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible Physician. Witness how they have entangled all men, themselves included, in the mesh of their devices. They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor have they any knowledge of the remedy. They have conceived the straight to be crooked, and have imagined their friend an enemy.
Incline your ears to the sweet melody of this Prisoner. Arise, and lift up your voices, that haply they that are fast asleep may be awakened. Say: O ye who are as dead! The Hand of Divine bounty proffereth unto you the Water of Life. Hasten and drink your fill. Whoso hath been reborn in this Day, shall never die; whoso remaineth dead, shall never live.
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Baha’u'llah, Charles Ellis, Kevin Willmott, The Barber’s Diaries, African American, morals, Divine Physician, credit crunch, economic downturn
Related posts:
{ 4 comments }
Thanks for posting this, Barney, it’s really interesting, both politically and emotionally. I shall look forward to finding out more on this project.
It’s a fascinating story, Tess, perhaps particularly for me as I know Wilma Ellis, once of Charles Ellis’s daughters, as a friend. Wilma is a remarkable woman and struggled from relative poverty to get herself educated (she has a PhD) and to do some very interesting work in the Baha’i community and the wider community. She’s a very interesting person to listen to and converse with.
But beyond the personal friendship, I think this is an important story that really should be told. David Henderson, also a good friend and a Washington DC journalist/PR (with strong ethical principles, unlike some) is putting a lot of energy into getting this film made.
Barney, I wanted to also thank for posting the clip about the Barber’s Diaries… I concur with the comments made by Tess.
I do hope to read his story or learn more…
thank you!
I really hope the film gets made – it would be such an inspiring thing to see on TV or in cinemas.
Comments on this entry are closed.