Salma Hayek receives humanitarian award from Arab American Institute

(WASHINGTON, DC) — Actress and film director Salma Hayek received the “Spirit of Humanity” Kahlil Gibran Award from the Arab American Institute on Thursday during an annual gala in Washington DC honoring successful Arab-Americans.

Hayek returned from a three-day trip to Lebanon on Tuesday, where she launched her new animated film “The Prophet”, which is based on Gibran’s book.

The animated film, which draws on the 1923 book by Lebanese-born writer Kahlil Gibran, tells the story of Almitra, a headstrong girl who forms a friendship with imprisoned poet Mustafa.

The Washington DC ceremony was held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, where Hayek was awarded in the category of “individual achievement.”

“I’m a citizen of the world, and my country is humanity, kids are poets from the moment they’re born; they get Gibran’s message without thinking about the meaning of individual words,” Hayek said.

The institute highlighted the Salma Hayek Foundation’s work to “end violence against women and attract global attention to humanitarian crises.”

Hayek said her trip to Lebanon was “very emotional” and called her new film a “love letter to my heritage.”

“Through this book I got to know my grandfather, through this book I got to have my grandfather teaching me about life,” she said in Beirut.

Hayek also visited Gibran’s birthplace, Bcharre, on Sunday to pay tribute to the writer and his book, which has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide.

Salma Hayek visits Lebanon to launch “The Prophet”

(BEIRUT, LEBANON) — Actress and film director Salma Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon for the first time on Sunday to launch “The Prophet,” a new animated feature film she co-produced.

Hayek, joined by Sethrida Geagea, visited the mountain village of Bcharre in northern Lebanon to pay tribute to Khalil Gibran, the Bcharre-born poet who wrote “The Prophet,” which the film is based on.

“Let us have a private moment in this place that we dreamt so long to be a part of,” Hayek said before entering the Gibran Museum.

“The Prophet,” written in 1923, has inspired generations of artists. The book, a series of poems about love, joy, sorrow, work and spirituality, has been translated into at least 40 languages.

Gibran also was a sculptor and a painter influenced by the English Romantics. He migrated to the United States in the late 1890s, dying there in 1931.

Hayek posed with one of Gibran’s towering sculptures outside the museum and dipped her feet in nearby mountain spring waters before visiting his tomb and viewing his work.

“The Prophet” director Roger Allers, who also directed Disney’s “The Lion King,” accompanied Hayek on the trip.

“I have been living with the spirit of Gibran for the last three years and it has been a very intimate experience and now to come to his home is very moving,” Allers said.

The film tells the story of a friendship between a young girl and an imprisoned poet. Quoting from Gibran’s book, Allers said: “‘Work is love made visible.’ And I really feel that about this movie.”

The film premieres April 30 in Lebanon. Distributor Mohammed Fadallah said it will be showing in 20 theaters here before going to the Gulf region and North Africa.

Hayek arrived Friday in Lebanon. The Mexican-American actress’ paternal grandfather was Lebanese and immigrated to Mexico.

A poster outside the museum bearing one of Gibran’s poems also welcomed her: “The children of my Lebanon, those who migrate with nothing but courage in their hearts and strength in their arms but who return with wealth in their hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.”

Source: Associated Press

Mexican and American actress Salma Hayek, center, Lebanese legislator Setrida Geagea, left, and film director Roger Allers, right, stand for the Lebanese and Mexican national anthems during her visit at the museum of the famed Lebanese-born poet and philosopher Khalil Gibran in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film "The Prophet," a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by Gibran.  Photo: Bilal Hussein, AP
Mexican and American actress Salma Hayek, center, Lebanese legislator Setrida Geagea, left, and film director Roger Allers, right, stand for the Lebanese and Mexican national anthems during her visit at the museum of the famed Lebanese-born poet and philosopher Khalil Gibran in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film “The Prophet,” a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by Gibran. Photo: Bilal Hussein, AP
Mexican and American Salma Hayek sits in front of a statue of Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran during her visit to his museum in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film "The Prophet," a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by the famed Lebanese-American poet and philosopher Gibran. Photo: Bilal Hussein, AP
Mexican and American Salma Hayek sits in front of a statue of Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran during her visit to his museum in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film “The Prophet,” a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by the famed Lebanese-American poet and philosopher Gibran. Photo: Bilal Hussein, AP
Mexican and American actress Salma Hayek signs the museum guest book during her visit at the museum of the famed Lebanese-born poet and philosopher Khalil Gibran in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film "The Prophet," a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by Gibran. Photo: Bilal Hussein, AP
Mexican and American actress Salma Hayek signs the museum guest book during her visit at the museum of the famed Lebanese-born poet and philosopher Khalil Gibran in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film “The Prophet,” a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by Gibran. Photo: Bilal Hussein, AP
Mexican and American actress Salma Hayek, second left, speaks with Lebanese legislator Setrida Geagea, second right, during her visit to Khalil Gibran's museum in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film "The Prophet," a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by the famed Lebanese-American poet and philosopher Gibran. Photo: Bilal Hussein, AP
Mexican and American actress Salma Hayek, second left, speaks with Lebanese legislator Setrida Geagea, second right, during her visit to Khalil Gibran’s museum in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film “The Prophet,” a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by the famed Lebanese-American poet and philosopher Gibran. Photo: Bilal Hussein, AP

WLCU unveils Gibran Khalil Gibran statue

(LOS ANGELES, CA) — The World Lebanese Cultural Union (WLCU) unveiled a long anticipated sculpture of Lebanese-American poet Gibran Khalil Gibran at the Los Angeles Central Library in Los Angeles, California on Dec. 5.

The unveiling, which happened during the week of the WLCU World Council Meeting at the Millennium Bitmore Hotel, commemorates the 130th anniversary of Gibran’s birth in Bsharri, Lebanon in 1883.

The statue of Gibran was sculpted by Lebanese-American artist Victor Issa at the LA Public Library, which is the largest library in the United States. Nearly 13 million people visit the library each year.

“Unfortunately a city like Los Angeles is honoring famed Lebanese people than Lebanon itself is getting an opportunity to,” said Metn MP Sami Gemayel, who attended the unveiling. “Lebanon needs the teachings of Gibran.”

Watch MTV Lebanon’s news report:

25 Life Lessons from Lebanese-American Visionary Gibran Khalil Gibran

1. Be thankful for the difficult times. They have showed you how strong you can be.

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

2. Kindness is a quality of the strong.

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”

3. There’s no such thing as absolute truth.

“Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’

“I AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.”

4. It’s the small people who try to belittle and humiliate others.

“To belittle, you have to be little.”

5. The harm others do to you is easier to forget than the harm you do to others.

“If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.”

6. You might forget those who made you laugh, but you will never forget those who were by your side in your darkest hours.

“You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.”

“Hearts united in pain and sorrow will not be separated by joy and happiness. Bonds that are woven in sadness are stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure. Love that is washed by tears will remain eternally pure and faithful.”

7. It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary.

“In the sweetness of friendship; let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

8. Love is life. And life is love.

“When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”

“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.”

9. Put love into your work.

“Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.”

“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”

10. To understand the heart and mind of a person, look at what he aspires to be.

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.”

“Trust in dreams, for in them is the hidden gate to eternity.”

11. True love can’t be possessed.

“Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.”

12. Seek to put up with bad manners pleasantly.

“The real test of good manners is to be able to put up with bad manners pleasantly.”

13. Love binds everything together in perfect harmony.

“They say: ‘If a man knew himself, he would know all mankind.’ I say: ‘If a man loved mankind, he would know something of himself.”

14. Always look on the bright side of life.

“The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.”

15. We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.”

16. True love is the offspring of spiritual affinity.

“It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.”

17. Let there be space in your relationship.

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

18. If you pray when it rains, make sure you also pray when the sun shines.

“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.”

19. When you give of yourself, that’s when you truly give.

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

20. Real beauty comes from within.

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”

21. Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

“Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.”

22. Every relationship should be free from bondage.

“No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.”

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.”

23. Be thankful for both the good and the bad in your life. It’s all meant to teach you something.

“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.”

“When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

24. Your attitude towards life will determine life’s attitude towards you.

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”

25. A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand.

“A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?”

Source: Purpose Fairy. Click here for original article.

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