Did you catch the interview on PrimeTime with Oprah Winfrey this past week?  Powerful stuff, wasn’t it?

I'd seen her speak at a women's conference in October 2002; Oprah had been to Africa for the first time the previous year, hatching the idea to bring the poor and orphaned children a real Christmas during that first trip.  Watching her interview this past week I was struck at how profoundly she was touched by her second trip, at how deeply she was changed.  I watched her "Oprah After the Show" on Oxygen this week; she talked more about her "calling".  I think it may have been more obvious to the rest of us who watched her, that a bright woman who's overcome so many challenges, with so many gifts to offer had no children of her own for a reason.  Voila - she's got the children of a continent, of a race.

Of course only a rock could be unmoved by the magnitude of need in Africa.  I cannot imagine the millions of children orphaned by AIDS already; add war and famine and it’s a disaster larger than any we humans have ever experienced before during our tenure on earth -- larger than the plagues of the past, threatening an entire continent, possibly entire ethnic groups, cultures and races.  What incredible bravery to look into that maw of hopelessness and dedicate one’s efforts to changing the outcome directly, rather than taking the easy way out and turning away to the comforts of this life an ocean and a continent away.  Foolhardy?  Perhaps…but there’s the rub.  What would that make the person so gifted with resources and circumstances, so called, who willfully walked away?

If you were moved by Oprah's interview, perhaps it wasn't just to save the children of Africa -- perhaps it was the spirit speaking to you.  You have a calling of your own, too, that one woman or one man with many blessings of her/his own.  You are called to do something.  You may even be called to save someone.  What is your mission?

Callings don't often come by email or phone or even blog (okay, maybe once in a while).  Seek yours out. Go for it. 

10:42:53 AM    comment []