“I feel such a kinship with the people of Uganda.”
-Charlie Hedges
Board of Directors, Wells of Life
Director of Uganda Operations
Bump In The Road:
Charlie Hedges and Wells of Water
From Uganda to American culture, this is a far ranging conversation with Charlie Hedges. Charlie and I are both on a quest for greater understanding and consciousness, and this conversation reflects that.
It starts with Charlie’s efforts with Wells of Water, a charity that provides clean water for rural Ugandan villages. Clean water changes everything for these villages. The women no longer spend hours a day trudging back and forth from a remote water source. The water is clean, and disease disappears. It means time for education.
Charlie notes that:
“Everyone I meet in Uganda is a happy and grateful person.”
That happiness is a contrast with the trends we are seeing in the West where communities are disintegrating; people are increasingly isolated; drugs are rampant; and society has a distinctly material bent. Charlie speculates that
“It is the downside of the American dream.”
The American ethos is so future oriented, that today doesn’t exist. That is exactly opposite of the rural mentality one finds in Uganda.
Our conversation ranges from the life changing impact of local, clean water, to what it takes to live a meaningful life. What are our priorities? What matters most? While the answer may differ for each of us, the basic constructs are the same.
Charlie Hedges On Living A Meaningful Life
“True spirituality is experiential.”
“Until our spirituality moves from understanding to experience it is a worthless theology.”
“You have to be present to pay attention.”
“Contemplation is absolutely essential yet it is so uncommon.”
“Love and kindness are everything.”
“We have to learn it the hard way, through failure and difficulties.”
“America is where one can go from nothing to something. But what are we losing along the way?”
“In Uganda, there is no such thing as tomorrow because tomorrow is the same a today. You’re living day by day. You don’t think about tomorrow.”
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