“The stability of the church tradition from that generation to mine is something I value about the church. In the same way it was a home to my grandparents, it is a home to me. Although they are no longer alive, we share that home together still.”

Corridor Learning: “Here I am, where I Ought to Be” A Personal Reflection on Religion and Life

by Shannon Mullen O’Keefe

I have always loved the first line of the film (and the original memoir) “Out of Africa.” The film starts with Meryl Streep (playing Karen Blixen) sitting on a windowsill deep in thought about her past. “I had a farm in Africa,” the character reflects…. “at the foot of the Ngong Hills….”

I’ve tried to put my finger on what it is about this moment in the film that has so attracted me to this character. Is it the fine-balance she manages between the present and the past? Is it the longing that it suggests one can have for another moment in time? Is it how the past and present can live fully in one human all at once? Or is it simply, how calmly she seems to accept her life, for what it is and what is has been?

In the book, this scene continues… “it was Africa distilled up through six thousand feet, like the strong and refined essence of a continent…. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.”

“Here I am, where I ought to be,” is what we all might hope to achieve in our lives. The strength of Blixen’s conviction may be what draws me in. The certainty of knowing that we’re in exactly the right spot is alluring. A majority of us seem often to be on one side or another of this equation. We strive to achieve…