Why am I here?

...that's the question that's been rolling around in my head the last few days. Not sure exactly why, it just has been. Though that question does usually start rolling around my head anytime I've been in one place longer than a year and a half. I haven't been here quite that long, but time seems to stretch when you're in Afghanistan. Could also be the fact that I've just taken my first real day off in three weeks. It could also be that it's been snowing for the last two days as well. Though here, unlike SoCal or Oklahoma, the snow stays for the next three months, so it's gonna be cold for awhile. THAT is a pretty good reason for questioning ones sanity in staying on. Because, believe it or not it can and will get more inconvenient living here.

So seriously, if all I'm doing is trying to make enough money to pay off some Credit Card and school debt, then save up enough to finish some flight and technical training there has GOT to be an easier way than wholesaling furniture in a place that most of the rest of the world still considers a combat zone. The other khoarajiiA (foreigners) come here for a variety of reasons; some have "answers," some have skills/expertise/"knowlege" that is necessary and beneficial here (mostly). Some are here just to make a quick buck and then head to the next cash swamped "AID" project. While the last really annoy me, none of those other reasons is really exactly why I'm here...
Now admittedly I am a collector of stories and certainly an "experience junkie," with more of C.J. Cherryh's "mri" in me than I sometimes care to admit, as "for the going" is pretty close to why I'm here after all (from: The Faded Sun Trilogy). "For the going" is a good start but still not quite complete. Though, I am tempted to end it here... I can't really think of any other reason that is quite as compelling.

Save one...
before and after everything else, I'm a seeker. A seeker of God (in a myriad of forms) and a seeker of change (which is form/less-ness itself). As to the former, a great seeker is from here. Al-Rumi is from Balkh (northern province of Afg.) and was arguably one of the greatest seekers of God in all of history, especially those from the East. His poetry is some of the most beautiful reflections of God-seeking and God that have been written (yes right up there with Dark Night of the Soul). So if, I'm also seeking other seekers so far I'm in good company. In addition to this great seeker, there is something about Kabul that draws those in a state of transition, or once some arrive a sense of transformation begins to emerge. In the face of the sheer timelessness of this crossroads of a continent one cannot help but start to think. As the culture/architecture/technology has changed little in the last thousand or so years it may seem a strange place coming to look for change. Alexander the Great or Tamerlane would be right at home in some of the neighborhoods here so little has changed. Yet, I sense God here, and I sense that if nothing else Kabul is a place of change for me at least. A preparation for the revolution of spirit, or perhaps the revolution itself...