Who are you?

Who are you?  What makes you who you are?  How comfortable are you with the person you are becoming?

These questions grow ever more urgent in a world where the media and society seem determined to form and shape us according to who they think we should be, the demographic categories that they try to limit us to, and they way we should look and dress.  Increasingly, I have come aware of the fact that the core of who we really are defined as is really nothing more than what we are on the surface level – our body fat percentages, smoothness of skin, awards, money in the bank.  I’ve begun asking myself the question, “How can I know who I am?  How can I define who I am when I am focused on myself, by myself, apart from the community of others?”

I think the “real” me comes in growing alongside of others.  Diving deep into relationships – experiencing life alongside of people who love me, care about me, and KNOW me.  I think this truth lies at the heart of Christianity.  We proclaim our God is both One and Three, that God’s essential nature is community, is relationship.  God has never existed in some isolated, divine individualism.  But yet we, for some reason or another, begin to express our “Christianity” as “my” relationship or “my” walk or “my” spiritual journey or “my” quiet time – where is the we?  God existed for community and in community and so should we.  The challenging I am finding is the challenge of worship this Triune God and living out what we pray and sing in relationships that I have with others.

I think as we begin to walk and join with others making the same journey of living out their faith that we will discover that we truly are connected -  that the universe and everything in it is an expression of God’s Word, and is filled with God’s breath.  And as we gaze on all these “others” – God, people, creature, thing – we find our place, we discover our souls, and we learn who we really are – apart from what the TV ad tells me and through the community and body of Christ.

So let me ask you again, who are you?  Who are the people that help you to know the answer to questions about life?  And what would happen if you expanded your community and embrace those around you longing to take part in community but were not able to previously because you were scared of losing some intimacy you had with the rest – neglecting someone else’s need all together.  Let me encourage you as the weeks that lead up to a new semester to ask yourself – how will you be defined?  How will you be connected?  How will you express God’s desire for community within the priesthood of believers in your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly life?

Filed under: Reflection