Impressions on Purpose and Calling

Kampala – January 17, 2007

I enjoy traveling and was looking forward of leaving seven inches of ice and snow and enjoying some warm weather in Africa.  Up early, loading the car and off, only to realize five minutes down the road that my laptop bag was still my place.

Thank goodness that all other signs seemed to be on my side.  The Freeway was clear of snow and ice.  The sun was out in its entire splendor caressing the snow covered trees and causing the meadows glisten in the early morning sun. 

I reached airport in the shortest time even and was checked in for the long Journey from Seattle, Washington to Entebbe, Uganda via Amsterdam in the Netherlands. At the airport I met a former co-worker with me in Africa who was also returning and it was a good time of exchanging what had happened in our lives.

On most long flights I do not sleep, but it usually becomes a time to read, to reflect and ponder what is ahead and where I have come from.  By the time the wheels of the KLM Jet touched down at Entebbe airport at 9 pm last evening, a lot had gone on within my head and heart especially as I reread James Hillman’s “The Soul ’s Code – In Search of Character and Calling.”

A most thought provoking book.  It took me back to my first trip to Africa, where I landed at 3am in the morning in Nairobi, Kenya. Life had worked out different than planned and something I had tucked into the deep recesses of my inner being came back to the surface.  Albert Schweitzer, the famed doctor from Lambarene Hospital had been one of my childhood heroes and I felt that someday I would be there in Africa.  It became during my formative years an “inner drang or sehnsucht” as we say in German.  An inner drive and longing, but like many in my youth I did not follow up until I reached my forties.

That same evening I arrived six hours away in Kisumu on Lake Victoria.  On my first day  I had spent time in the largest slum in Africa, Kibera and had taken a six hour journey to Kisumu, where I spent the next few days with no electricity, water came from a cistern, food was cooked over charcoal fires and washed with a bucket.  Culture shock yes, but I felt at home.  That same feeling was there again as I drove the 30 some miles from the airport to the place I am staying at in Kampala.  The sights, sounds, scent assaulted my senses in a delightful way creating a sort of African Night symphony. At 3 am on the 17th I felt inspired by that music within to write my first update from Africa to you.

All of have a calling within, a calling to a purpose, a mission in life, a place, a place that in my case I read about in my youth, and every day I am here it feels like home and inner purpose comes to the forefront and the reason I was created begins to make a whole lot of sense.  Besides things fall into place naturally without being forced

There is one other thing I concluded during my trip, most of us are pushed to grow, to become someone and many of us just might have grown into someone that is not really us.  The prevailing word in 2007 is growth, what I have learned here in Africa that one can not only grow up, but grown down and make sense of the things that are deep within us, to grow down puts us into touch the real self and not only that but the real world.

In 1997 I was sitting in my car waiting for the light to change, in front of me was a  red Mercedes convertible, a well dressed man sitting there, sunglasses on, to the side of him on the sidewalk was a severely crippled man who reached out his deformed hand which the well to do man totally ignored…Last night I realized that just maybe it was the rich man’s calling to grow down to that crippled man and to make a difference in his world and in the world of others…maybe…jon