Lauren Booth – The Photo That Changed My Life I Convert Story of Sister Lauren – Ep. 2
AI: Summary ©
The speaker describes their experience as a minor celebrity, starting from their time as an actress and working as an actor. They describe their experiences as addictive and toxic, and how they use their fearless behavior to achieve their goals. They also mention their daughter's death and the possibility of being fired from their work if they do not meet their goals.
AI: Summary ©
After that, I became a journalist and I
started to write and I became what we
might call a minor celebrity.
But I used to love the applause, that's
why I can talk about it.
I trained as an actress and I was
an actress for seven years and if you
speak to any actor and say, why do
you do a job that makes you mostly
poor, you know, into all kinds of situations,
why do you put up with it?
They will say, the applause.
It's addictive, it's like a drug.
When you're in that state, you want it.
You want the fame and people will give
it to you and I had a little
bit of it and it became quite toxic.
I was a minor celebrity who in my
world thought I was the major celebrity in
the universe because everybody became a little star
in my orbit of ego.
My husband at the time, my kids, my
parents, everything revolved around my nafs.
What's the moment when the light got in?
When did you first feel that the universe
was about something different?
When did that happen?
And I've thought about this long and hard
and it comes down to this moment for
me.
In 2000, I had my first daughter.
Her name is Alexandra and you know the
birth of a first child for both parents,
but I promise you especially for the mother,
is a moment of transcendence.
You leave your body, your heart bursts with
a love you didn't even know was there
when you first look into those eyes.
And more than that, you want the world
to be a better place.
I went instantly overnight from someone who used
to listen to Eminem and rap stars to
someone who didn't like loud music too much.
Well, not that kind of music because I
didn't want women to be abused.
I didn't want that kind of language around
my daughter.
In the year 2000, in December, my daughter
was a month old and I was holding
her to me and I was watching the
evening news and a photograph came on that
would change my life and it was this
photograph.
There was a young boy, he looks 10
years old but actually he's 14.
He's small for his age and all you
can see is the back of him because
the cameraman is behind him and the little
boy is standing like this.
And what is amazing is that he's about
to throw something.
It's a dynamic photograph, but what is more
amazing brothers and sisters is that just a
few meters away, gigantic bearing down on him
is a tank.
Now if you and I were here, I
didn't tell you he had a stone in
his right hand, did I?
If you and I, may Allah protect us,
ever came face to face from a tank,
my bet is we'd run.
That's the human instinct.
But this little boy, he was leaning into
the tank.
He was going to throw his stone without
fear no matter what happened to him and
I knew sitting there with my new baby,
I knew the men in that tank were
afraid of him and he was not afraid
of that tank.
The newscaster told me the boy's name was
Faris Oday and he came from a place
called Rafa Refugee Camp that I'd never heard
of and I want you to remember that
name because it comes up later in my
story and I didn't know it at the
time, but nine days after that photo, Faris
Oday was shot dead by an Israeli sniper.
You see he was Palestinian.
The bullet went into his throat and he
bled to death on the floor of his
refugee camp, protecting the women of his village
with a stone.
Now that photo and the Qadr of Allah
is the only explanation I have for everything
that has happened since, even leading up to
right being here today because I have been
aware that I have not been guiding my
ship for a very long time and we
all have moments where we think we're in
charge right and it's good to have a
plan.
We're encouraged to have aspirations, but what if
you let go of the steering wheel of
your life?
Who's actually guiding you?