A "MUST SEE" MOVIE: INVICTUS

I just watched "Invictus."  This has just jumped to the top of my "favorite of all time" movie list, bumping "Gandhi" to second place.  It would not be wise for anyone to form an opinion about "who I am" based on these two movies because my third place winner is "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

First of all, I would like to point out that I am not a "cry baby" when it comes to movies.  In fact, it takes a lot to make me cry period.  For some illogical reason, I fought the urge to cry throughout most of the movie.  Invictus, for those who have not seen it, is based on a small part of Nelson Mandela's life.  He spent 27 years of his life in prison for resisting (attempting to sabotage) the Apartheid National Party Government of South Africa that ruled from 1948 to 1994.  This government forced extreme segregation between the blacks and the whites.  The policies of this government were very inhumane and that is why Mandela fought for the freedom of the blacks in South Africa.

Mandela was released from prison in 1990.  He was elected as President of South Africa and served from 1994 to 1999.  The movie/story/plot tells how he used the Springboks, the National South African Rugby Team, to unify South Africans after he was elected as president.  Mandela was not only a highly educated man, he was blessed with an abundance of "common sense."  He believed in "forgiveness" rather than being driven by "vindictiveness."

While in prison, a poem made a mark on his life and kept him going through all the hardships he encountered while incarcerated all those years.  Title and author unknown:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Note:  We are born with a God given soul.  It is up to us what we do with it.  It would be well if people in "hopeless" situations would read this poem and apply it to their lives.  Life can be hard for some people.  There is a saying, "What doesn't kill you will make you stronger."  Prison life did not kill Mandela and appears to have made him stronger.