Strongly recommended. It's like watching devil's advocate in real life. Listen to what the Vegas real estate agent has said, and see what are in the pawn shop.

- "President Reagan urges the consumer to keep on spending, predicting the economy expansion will continue".
- On average, for each $1 credit card companies collect on the principal, $2 more dollars are collected on interest and fee. Effectively, the person in debt will pay till they die (The situation is worse in Taiwan. The creditors can chase the person even after one dies. They go after their children, spouse, siblings, relatives).
- The amount each year US government pays on interest is more than homeland security, education, and health care combined.
 
Note: The link to the movie "Maxed Out" is here.

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1655415,00.html#

Mother Teresa's crisis of faith (at Time Magazine) is very very inspiring to me, in many ways. The first and up-most shock was her lack of feeling of God/light when serving the poor, when devoting herself dearly to God. It's already hard to endure 5 months of darkness for anyone (it could legitimately be called some sort of depression), let alone 50 years.

And so to us the totality of love is what we feel. But to really love someone requires commitment, fidelity and vulnerability.

And,

"If I ever become a Saint — I will surely be one of 'darkness.' I will continually be absent from Heaven — to [light] the light of those in darkness on earth," she wrote in 1962........... Catholic theologians recognize two types of "dark night": the first is purgative, cleansing the contemplative for a "final union" with Christ; the second is "reparative," and continues after such a union, so that he or she may participate in a state of purity even closer to that of Jesus and Mary, who suffered for human salvation despite being without sin. By the end, writes Kolodiejchuk, "by all indications this was the case with Mother Teresa."

That made her a bodhisattva in Mahayana's view, who put everyone in front of herself. "Wow", like what Kolodiejchuk has commented.

What I wanted to mention is actually not this but about confession. I noticed Mother Teresa confessed sincerely to the priest (or people of the sort from the church) and to God of course. It's not only a trusted channel but also a therapeutic and mentoring channel. And I almost forget such channel is also almost accessible everywhere in the world, at least the western part of the world. Looking back at confession for Buddhists, accessibility? nah. trusted? yah. therapeutic? not sure. mentoring? I doubt. This goes back to my earlier thought about a person to a new environment. He or she can easily join a church and be accepted as a brother or a sister. Such thing does not happen for Buddhists. Buddhists are so to themselves. I suspect that is from the Theravada tradition (as opposed to the Mahayana one). Without families everywhere, how do people find whole-hearted support and grow? No way. Trust, therapy, and mentor, are all built on top of whole-hearted support. I am a Buddhist. But I still have to criticize, based on facts. How can things be done better?

I don't in particular like the title of the movie. Like darkness, I don't like negative stuff. I believe God always loves us :-)

To be honest, I haven't really finished the movie yet, hopefully soon. Nevertheless, it's an inspiring one. In the movie, I saw people leaving their hometown not because of poverty of the land, but because of military actions between different groups of people. People are fighting for resources and powers as to put aside other people's lives. You can say that it happens everywhere in the world, more or less. Hmm, that sounds cold blooded... Let's say we donate some money to help humanitarian organizations. That feels detached although it's as easy as a click.

- At least for me, I want some soul-touching stuff. I need connection to people, not just numbers. I believe it's likewise from the other side.
- Another aspect is about respect. The boy who got picked to PA was overjoyed but it's a long way to thrive in an alien land (I haven't watched the whole movie yet). He needs to adjust different cultures, even different kinds of food (starting from the flight to US). Would he get the same treatment as he would in his mother land? Who doesn't want to prosper in their mother land?
- Yet another aspect is the management of the humanitarian organizations. The boys in the camp spent years doing nothing except the first few years of little education. That was a HUGE waste of human resource. The boys in this documentary kept mentioning they were losing hope. It's heart-broken looking into their eyes, their desperate eyes saying that...

I would like them to help me as I would help them.

Link to the movie is here.