A question asked in Rwanda

It is always the same: once you are liberated, you are forced to ask who you are.
Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929), French semiologist. America, “Astral America” (1986; tr. 1988).

”Who are you?” That was the question posed to me by the Rwandan Immigration Official in the late summer of 1994. Kanombe Airport had just reopened and I had taken a chartered flight on a little Beechcraft (covered with numerous bullet holes) into Kigali, Rwanda from Entebbe Airport in Kampala, Uganda. I was obviously the only traveler to have arrived that day on any flight and it took some time before anyone would even come to check my passport and issue me a visa.

”You, have my passport, what else do you want?” I had given him my passport and filled out application for a short-term visa, but he still wanted to know who I was. After about an hour of standing around, discussing what I did, what I was about, I was finally allowed into the country. It was a good thing, since the plane I had come in on had already departed.

That remark, that question, has stuck with me for the past few years. “Who are you? I had never really thought about it, I had simply gone through life, taken it as it comes and never tried to define who I was. (In my experience with people it seems that is what we all we do until something happens and we can examine, or have the courage to examine our lives)

That night I sat down by candlelight in my room and wrote down some thoughts some definitions. (The rooms was in a house that had been owned by a German engineer and his Rwandan wife, bullet holes were still evident on the outside and inside of the home, power would be on for two hours a day or more.) Things like, I am a father of three children came to my mind, I am a person who was married and is now divorced. I wrote a list of my accomplishment, of what I owned. I thought about the fact that some would define me by what I owned or owed, all at the same time. I thought of my education and the thirst to learn more, thought about people I had been with and related to. There were many thoughts along such lines, but they all represented what I did, what I had done or future plans, as to what I was going to do. Who was I? The question kept coming back over and over again.

When I was young, I thought I was invincible, was good looking (so I was told), able to make a lot of money, marry a beautiful woman and live happily ever after. Was that me? Was me, the car I drove, the labeled shirts, pants, and underwear I wore?

I thought of the graveyards I used to visit as a young boy in Germany with my grandmother. She would tend to family graves while I would walk around and look at headstones. (A habit I still have to this day) On the head stones would be dates such as 1890-1960 and nothing else but a name. I would look at those date and say to myself, “How can you put 70 years or whatever into a - (dash) between two dates and say that is a life, a person, a human being.

Solomon said to be one of the wisest men who ever lived said, after he had it all, after he had reached every pinnacle of human success the following put into plain English “all striving is vanity.”

By this time I had reached some conclusions about success, failure, I had learned to live in abundance and with little, I had reached the pinnacle of success and yet, that inner joy still eluded me.

Years later I would read a book by Wayne Dyer and hear some of his tapes where he speaks of us being Human Beings instead of Human Doings. That was exactly it, I had been a Human Doing, striving for, and never reaching the destination, and not enjoying the journey.

My pen began to move across the pages as I wrote down the thoughts of my heart. Yes, I was Jon Blanc, yes I had a beginning and I would have end, but I wanted it to be more than a mere dash between two dates. Yes, I had been married, yes I had a job, yes, I had children, yes, and I had a car. Yes, yes, yes.

I felt something more however, something that stirred within me. Was I not more than the name my parents had given me? Was I not more than the social security number, driver’s license, passport, visa number and application? Was I not more that my bank account, my mortgage, my bills, my assets?

Ask the average person “Who are you?” The answer will variably be what they do. May it be a student, a doctor, lawyer, or a sales representative. But is that the real us, the real me?

I am jon, a container of divine treasure, of gifts and talents imparted to me to use at this moment in time. I am jon, an eternal being, who will live in one dimension or another forever. I am jon in whom divine life dwells; I am a living soul, I am a human body. The breath of life, is in me, when I die in this form, the breath will go on. I am not the sum of my accomplishments, designer labels, the right house or car. I am jon who is even more than his name. I am loved by God. The Hebrews used to say that our names are imprinted on the hands of God. I am jon whose life will go on and who has all he needs to be himself.

Jesus once defined success, as doing the will of God. Which simply means to allow the life flow to go through us, to move with the river of life that is flowing in us. To see this as part of something much greater, to have a vision of the eternal and not just of the here and now.

I walked outside into the African night looking above, listening within and it seemed like a voice said to me, “You are my child and I love you.” I am jon, loved by God. I felt free, free to find out more of who I was now and to discover what I was to be...jon