Ascent, Crest, Perspective: The Making of a Bamboo Camel

By Ross W. James | ISBN 9780645227772

With wit and a good deal of self-deprecation, Dr Ross James reflects on journals and correspondence that cover 40 years of living and working internationally. Ross traces what happened after he left a family funeral business and yielded to the leading of Providence that took him to the Seychelles Islands, India, Philippines, and Pakistan before relocating to Australia, from where he led initiatives to develop community-centred media projects throughout Asia.

With the benefit of personal journals to refer to, Ross eloquently explains what he calls the Ascent, a 20-year period of preparation with experiences and education as a journalist, radio program producer, academic, designer and developer of cross-cultural training tools, health communication consultant and researcher.

The Ascent of preparation levelled out on the Crest of purpose, what was to be his life’s work, motivated by the teachings of Jesus whose life exemplified care for the vulnerable, marginalised and poor. He has been associated with a range of service providers and organisations to equip communities for social and spiritual transformation through community-centred media.

After detailing the Ascent and explaining the Crest, Ross turns to Perspective and candidly reveals the clinical depression that was concurrent with his work, achievement and success accompanied by despair, misplaced guilt, and loss of joy.

His journal excerpts are sometimes painful reading; some revelations are vulnerable honesty. Yet, Ross accepts a proposition that depression might well have been a “gift of a handicap” to compel him to depend on Providence to overcome his limitations. His startling conclusion is that he is, after all, merely a bamboo camel designed with specifications to fulfil a providential purpose.

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