The World of Russian Language and Culture: Helping others, or Do you hear the music of your heart?

I was deaf once…
I saw people get up and begin to move in a strange way.
They called it dancing.
I thought it absurd until, one day, I heard music
Anthony de Mello

True beauty cannot be separated from kindness. Inner beauty is exactly the kindness that shines from within, the kindness, which can save our fragile world. To quite Mark Twain, “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see”. Kindness has no borders, nationality, age, religion. In different parts of the world you find beautiful examples of true kindness.

A long time back, almost a hundred years ago, in a family, which came from hot Lebanon, during a blizzard, a boy was born. He was named Amos Alphonsus Muzyad Yakhoob. Amos’s parent had 9 children. Hence, the little boy had to start work early. At 10 Amos was selling newspapers. At 11 he sold candy at a burlesque theatre. It was not just a job. It was every kid’s dream. Probably, that is why he worked there for an entire 7 years. In addition, Amos loved to watch people.

Can you imagine how many colorful people he met at his work? One would have to start dreaming about acting. The bright world of show business never let Amos go. What do you need to win over show business? First, you need decent clothes and shoes, which Amos earned with hard physical labor. And secondly, you need a name, which sounds good and can be remembered easily. Without much thought, Amos borrowed his brothers’ names. He has been called Danny Thomas since then. Danny was lucky almost from the beginning. First he worked on the radio, on a show called The Happy Hour Club. Happiness is not alone. It never comes by itself. On the show he met the love of his whole life, Rose Marie Cassanti. She thought for three years before agreeing to marry him. Wedding, the birth of their first child…

It would seem the entire world belongs to you. And then the fate makes a sudden turn. Danny Thomas loses his job on the radio. What do we do in a difficult situation? We ask for help from the heavens so they would show us the way. When Danny Thomas had only 7 dollars left in his pocket, he prayed to St Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes, and swore that if he ever found his way in life, he would open a shrine dedicated to the St Jude. It was not just a prayer. It was his soul calling to the saint, who had taught that faith is not enough, one also needs to perform kind deeds. You would not believe it, but a few days later he was invited to a popular night club. A year later he was making 500 dollars per week. But it was only the first step on his way to the top. A little while later he has a lead role in the ABC TV show Make Room for Daddy.

This show is considered one of the most successful in the history of the American TV. Why such success? Maybe, it was because it was sincere. Many episodes are based on true events from Thomas’s life. And finally, the actor and producer Danny Thomas reaches the top in Hollywood.

At the peak of his fortune, he decided to fulfill his promise. Danny sought advice of his friend, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago, who advised him to open a charity hospital for all hopelessly ill children, regardless of their religion, age, or ability to pay. Thomas began to raise money for the hospital. He organized various charitable concerts, to which he invited, at various points in time, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Robert Sherwood, Jane Russell, Bob Hope, and Jerry Lewis...

The hospital opened in 1960, and began to function to full capacity in 1962. Gradually, a small hospital for poor children turned into a large charitable scientific center, presently, one of the largest in the USA. In the last 50 years, it has treated over 16 000 children from about 60 countries. No patient has paid for treatment there. Furthermore, the hospital pays for hotel rooms for adults, who accompany the sick children. The center will send a helicopter or another means of transportation for any child.

Danny Thomas lived a long and happy life. He worked at his center until his last days. One day Thomas said “I think the show business was just a means for me to fulfill my main purpose in life – to open the St Jude Hospital. The creation of the Hospital is the principal event in my life. Thousands of children, which had to die, are alive today only because this hospital exists.”

http://www.stjude.org

Do you think a story like this could happen anywhere but in today’s Russia? Think again…

One beautiful spring day in Smolensk a girl was born, she was named Diana. She grew up, enjoyed painting, played funny scenes with her cousin and organized home concerts. While distributing roles among other little actors, she took the ones no one else wanted, and did not view herself as an actress. She graduated an arts high school, decided she wants to be an arts teacher, and began to study arts and graphics at a university. Diana studied there for a year, got bored, and, suddenly for everyone, switched to acting. Then there was school-studio MHAT, first stage appearances, film roles, and the world learned about the magnificent actress Dina Korzun.

A couple of years later, another beautiful fall day in Kazan, another girl was born, and was named Chulpan. She grew up in a family of engineers, skated, enjoyed reading, and attended a math high school. Chulpan was planning on studying “precise” sciences, like her parents, and began to study finance and economics. A few months later she suddenly quit and switched to the school of acting, and then, GITIS. In her third year Chulpan began to play in films, and we learned another wonderful actress, Chulpan Khamatova.

The two young women became friends while making the film The Country of the Deaf (1998).

They had much in common. Most importantly, their hearts could hear the suffering of others. When Dina was 12, she was in a hospital together with a group of noisy children from a local orphanage and saw how much hassle they were to the personnel. She was mainly struck, however, by the children’s pain, and for a short while she became a “mom” to a three-year-old boy, who followed her everywhere, holding on to her dress. Two week later she left the hospital, but could never again forget the little kids. One time, already a famous actress, Dina went to Nepal, to work at a local orphanage. Upon return, she shared the details of the trip with her friend, and heard a story about children, who needed a blood detox machine. The sad Chulpan Khamatova said that she had been invited to host a charity concert, but failed to raise the necessary amount for the hematological center.

What happened later was a live illustration of Korzun’s motto, “put one foot in front of the other”. It was precisely this conversation of the two friends, which became the beginning of a huge undertaking, due to which thousands of hopelessly sick children got a chance to live. The two women managed to organize two charity concerts with a large number of stars, and a little later, a charity Fund, which already helps a huge number of kids. When asked about her most successful project, the actress Chulpan Khamatova responds, “Shall I list every recovered child by name?”

A Candle loses nothing by lighting another candle… To perform a miracle, one needs not be a wizard. It is enough to have a responsive heart and a strong will. A large merit of the characters of our stories is the fact, that they gave all people a chance to be truly beautiful and to save our common small world. Stop, listen… And you will hear the music of your heart.