On Who Am I?

What do you say to someone you meet at party? How do you identify yourself? Probably from the outside in.

            Not by your religious condition. I’m a ‘miserable sinner’ (prayer book); I’m a ‘child of God’ (catechism); I’m an interrelationship with everything in the universe (Buddhist); I’m a compendium of chemicals strung together with electrical impulses (atheism): I am dust, and will return to dust.

            Nor with family: a good parent (I feed my children), or bad (I beat them); a filial child (heeding my parents), or neglectful (ignoring them). The wise avoid politics: gripping hard to the right or spinning out with the left. More approvable your football team or favourite band. No strong emotions: I’m in love, I’m pregnant; I’m gay; I’m inspired. Or I loathe, I hate, I despise.

            Even work shuns the personal. Who says: I’m a trustworthy employee (honest), or slipshod and lazy?  a sincere CEO (devoted to the good), or corrupt (follow the money)? Do the arts save us? I’m a pianist, an actor, a watercolourist? Am I first an artist or a teacher? Am I a ball of skills, personalities, impressions? All these? Or only dust, gold dust, maybe?

On Knowing Who You Are

I had a dream where I was confused about who I was, where I was, who I was with, and when it was. I thought I was living in the past, when my husband was alive, and I was concerned that my dogs had not been fed as we moved from one house to another. I wanted to go back and feed them. Yet at some level, I knew I belonged in the present, at yet another address, with different dogs who had certainly been fed last night. What was I looking for? Why did I think I was moving from place to place? Why didn’t I know when I was living?

            When I awoke, this reminded me of Jesus’ question to his disciples: ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’ and then his second question: ‘Who do you say I am?’ In ancient times, it mattered very much what other people think of you. Ideally, it should agree with what you think of yourself. What God thinks of you, God knows.

            It matters even more what people say about you. ‘For what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?’ This passage in Luke 9 raises the likelihood of being shamed because the Son of Man is ashamed of them. That is being cast away: we can’t trust you, because you have been ashamed of us. On the one hand, the disciples are told to be silent, but on the other hand, something honourable has to be said. How to get out of this dilemma?

            I’m afraid the world is full of prominent people who have lost themselves although they appear to have gained the whole world. It’s a mistake to envy them. Not a few examples come to mind, from politicians to business leaders to entertainment stars. Would you, in cold blood, want to change places with them? Would you like their ruthlessness, crudity and greed charged to your account? Who are they? Who are you?

            Who was I in my dream? A mean person who doesn’t feed her dogs? An anxious person trying to live up to responsibilities? Someone who moves around all the time? Someone who stays in the same place all the time? Someone living in the past, or trying to regain the past? But I knew the present existed. Those were good times, but these are good times too.

            There seemed to be a page unturned, and it had to do with feeding the dogs. Anyone who knows me knows I love dogs. Maybe I need to do more loving of dogs. More loving in general. Some people might believe I think too much, and feel too little. It doesn’t feel that way. Maybe I love thinking about ideas. Although there are surely ideas I wouldn’t cross the street for.

            I love the city where I live, so I photograph it, and its people, and its dogs. Who are we? Are we who people say we are, or who our friends think we are, or who we say we are in dreams, in public, or privately to ourselves? Or all of the above, whether in a parallel or a circular pattern? What God thinks of us, God knows.