This is a song I heard that speaks of life and death beautifully:
“On the Other Side” by Don Conoscenti
from his album Paradox of Grace
Click here to listen to the song on Don’s website
The Cameron Effect has been used in schools as a tool for anti-bullying campaigns. Here are a couple of poems written by high school student, Morgan Graham. She was bullied so badly when she was younger that she had to change schools. She asked that these poems be made available to Cameron Effect viewers.
Beautiful Vines
By Morgan Graham
We walk this earth
God has given us the chance to breathe
Sometimes we lose our road and we follow a new one
If that means shutting people out
The life of a party
Or just trying to get through the day
We follow ourselves
We make changes that effect people
Right or wrong
Moments are made
By time we are given the opportunity to accomplish dreams and hopes
For me, I just go to my secret place
God has given me a gift of talent
We are all meant to shine in some way
The soul is beautiful and has vines of greatness
That grows more than you think
Sometimes our past has demons that visit
My demons visit a lot
But somehow my vines pull me back to where I’m okay
This life and others are meant for greatness
For right or wrong
God made us to shine
The Outsider
By Morgan Graham
Can you hear me
Am I speaking English
I guess no one cares
Do people think of me
Am I a joke to them
Then why do I feel this way
Is this real
Am I dreaming
I look outside and the wind goes through the trees like its planed
I wonder if I’m going to fly someday through the trees
Am I going to make it
The outsider can’t even make a complete sentence without a stumble
What guy wants to be with me
I’m not the style
A dog is a friend; she never tells you that you are ugly or pretty
A beauty pageant is a beauty pageant
The outsider would be disqualified for being ugly
Ugly on the outside just more beautiful inside
Artwork by a young friend in commemoration of Cameron! Click Here to see it.
Andy Essink of AE Custom Guitars has donated one of his amazing and beautiful electric guitars to the Cameron Effect. It is presently being used by Cameron’s friends to create original music in honor of the Cameron Effect. We greatly appreciate this generous and heartfelt gift.
A poem written exactly 24 hours after the crash that took Cameron’s life.
By Karma Larsen (mother to another passenger in that same vehicle.)
Five Young Men
You are not here to verify, instruct yourself, inform curiosity or carry report. You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid.-T.S. Eliot
bits of the story keep seeping out
spots of bright red blood seeping under the door
how, as they enter the car
the one who yelled shotgun
sat instead in back, didn’t know the roads as well
how the lights bearing down on them
were only visible for a mere second
then darkness
so that the liquid they felt
on their faces, their hands
had no color, only warmth.
i try to wrangle the words, the images
wrestle them into lines here on the page.
in hearing the story, telling it
it is so difficult to keep the young men straight
the names, the injuries
the fourth name gets left out in every telling
we stumble, pause, look away.
and how strangely for me the fifth young man
the one we did not know
the one in the pickup
continues to haunt
he too is someone’s son.
and so we walk out into the world
enter our cars, raise our sons
and cry holy, holy, holy.
Written by Karma Larsen about 3:40 a.m. Wednesday, November 24
Accident occurred about 3:40 a.m. Tuesday, November 23
This is another song that speaks of life and death beautifully: Afro Celt Sound System – Release, with lyrics
