Everywhere we’ve lived Martha and I
have heard a knock on the front door and opened it to find Jehovah’s Witnesses
or Mormons. I wonder what it would be
like if Unitarian Universalists went knocking at people’s doors? Would we say something like “We’re Unitarian
Universalists, and we are unsure how to describe our religion.” or “We’re
Unitarian Universalists, could you tell us about your religion.” or “We’re
Unitarian Universalists, could we offer you a cup of coffee in a bright orange
mug with a chalice on it?”
Knowing who
we are as Unitarian Universalist is one thing, but knowing who we are period,
is one of those ultimate questions of existence that we all answer either
consciously or unconsciously as we live in this world. Earlier in the service we sang “even to
question truly is answer.” What I want
us to consider today is how we each experience the question “Who am I?”
Sometimes
you might answer that question by describing or naming what you do or what
roles you have, or sharing how other people refer to or name you, or sometimes
you describe who you are through metaphor: “I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .”
It’s a short question, but it’s a really big one. It can seem like no answer, no matter how
long or detailed, is really complete.
And that’s because no answer is really ever complete.
Recently, I have been struggling
with who I am in terms of what I have I done in my life, and whether any of my
accomplishments, for want of a better word, have any worth. How many of you have heard of Erik
Erikson? How about his stages of
psychological development?
With each
stage Erickson suggests we have the opportunity to grow psychologically and
learn more about who we are, perhaps gaining some core values as we
grow—wisdom, trust, purpose. In brief,
at each stage we struggle with two opposing dynamics, like trust vs. mistrust
from birth to about a year and a half.
During this stage we experience the consistency with which our needs are
met, and if we develop trust that our needs will be met, we develop hope. The same dynamic exists throughout all the
stages of development.
I have been
wondering if I could describe myself by how I have resolved each of these
psychological dynamics. For instance,
right now I have found myself considering stage 8, even though I am not 65 or
thinking about retirement. I have found
that many Unitarian Universalists seem to be fairly fluid across the stages of
development, addressing each according to their individual readiness to do so
rather than by a particular maturational age. Erickson suggests that it is
during this Ego Integrity vs. Despair time that we contemplate our
accomplishments and can develop ego integrity if we see ourselves as leading a
successful life.
I have
found myself comparing my accomplishments to those of my peer group and my
siblings. What I have found is that it
is easy to get caught up in financial accomplishments, time when people are
able to retire, ability to enjoy a range of choices in how to spend
retirement. Really these are less
important to me. However, they are
benchmarks that are easy for me to become obsessed with and they will certainly
impact the quality of my life. What seems more important to me is how I embrace
the kind of accomplishments that don’t really fit into the normal definition of
an accomplishment: treating someone with worth and dignity, trying to really
understand someone different than me, helping a community, group, or non-profit
accomplish something amazing. The thing
is I have to remind myself that these non-mainstream accomplishments exist, and
that I determined a long time ago that they’re important. They don’t seem to
pop into my head unsolicited like finances and retirement seem to. But the
reality is these are the achievements that are meaningful to me and that are
more descriptive of how I see myself, who I am and who I want to continue to
be.
I am deeply concerned that too many people are
defining who they are by what they see on social media. I can tell you I have been tempted by the
social media yardstick myself. But as
Cox said, I am only seeing the “highlight reel”, not the realities of a
person’s existence with all it normal functioning, difficulties, and
failures. Think about how easy it is to
compare yourself to someone else’s highlight reel. How does that impact your sense of self?
So how do
we answer the question “Who am I” if we don’t use comparisons to others. And how do we answer the question of “Who am
I”, if we are not static beings, never changing how we think, feel, or act.
Buddha said after a man spit on him and later asked for forgiveness: “Forgive
[you for spitting on me]? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The
Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every person is a
river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am
not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has
flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against
you. And you also are new. I can see you
are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit,
whereas you are [now] bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the
same man? You are not the same man. Those two people, the man who spit and the
man on whom he spit, both are no more.”
I was
working with an African American evangelical preacher in Chicago, Reverend Dr.
R. J. Saffo. We both were highly
committed to our relationship and the relationship between the church I served,
DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church, and his collaborative group of local
African American evangelical churches (PTMAN).
However, on one occasion members of DuPage UU and I were at a breakfast
hosted by his organization, and one of the speakers spoke extensively about how
sex should only be between a man and a woman, and that the woman should be
submissive to the man. Needless to say
this didn’t go over well with me and the DuPage UU members who were in
attendance.
As it
turned out that morning, earlier at that breakfast I had spoken about how
Dupage UU was happy and thankful to have a growing relationship with
PTMAN. I had announced that we were
going to financially support PTMAN’s black youth initiative to help black youth
in the area have summer internships.
But now the
members of DuPage UU and I were so disturbed by what we heard that morning that
some wanted to quit the relationship with PTMAN, and at least one did. I committed to sit down with Rev. Dr. Saffo
to discuss our concerns. When I did, I
shared with him how the presentation about heterosexuality and submissive women
distressed myself and members of DuPage UU.
He was surprised by our feelings.
As it turned out he was going to contact me about something I said. He and the members of PTMAN were offended by
my use of the word “black” in reference to their youth. They felt this word was degrading. Rev. Dr. Saffo and I wanted our relationship
and the relationship between our organizations to continue, so we both
expressed “What next?” We both
apologized and then worked on ways to deal with these issues, and committed to
stay in communication when issues like these came up in the future.
Was I the
same person after this experience? No, I
wasn’t. Was Rev. Dr. Saffo the same
person after this experience? No, he
wasn’t. In fact, we were different
people by just being in relationship with one another.
So “Who I am” is a challenge for me
and I think any Unitarian Universalist to answer. Answering the question of who I am, at least
today, has two parts. One is the part
that I present to the world—minister, father, husband, male, heterosexual,
Unitarian Universalist, all the titles that I have taken on or been given by
others—selecting the ones I choose to accept.
That is the functional way of defining who I am.
Indian born
spiritual leader Eknath Easwaran writes:
“The glory of the human being is our ability to remake ourselves. The
Buddha is very rightly called the Compassionate One because he holds out hope
for everybody. He doesn’t say our past has been dark, therefore our chances are
dim. He says whatever our past, whatever our present, the sky is bright for us
because we can remake ourselves. The Buddha says, ‘be a good woodworker.
Consciousness is the wood, and you can make it take any shape you like. Just as
a carpenter works the wood to build a house or a fine piece of furniture,
similarly we can fashion the responses and attitudes we desire: love, wisdom,
security, patience, loyalty, enthusiasm, cheerfulness. As an irrigator guides
water to the fields, as an archer aims an arrow, as a carpenter carves wood, the
wise shape their lives.’”
If you consider being an archer, aiming with your life toward your values and purpose, you will need to shape who you are one day at a time. You might consider being with people and in places that remind you of who
you choose to be. Or read about the values and purpose you want to foster
in your life and keep those values and purposes in the forefront of your
mind. Or meditate or pray about
those values and purposes. And when you
make a mistake, miss the mark, run into a stone in the middle of your river,
you can step back and learn from that experience, examine it as it relates to
the values and purpose you aspire to embody.
You will answer the question of “Who am I” multiple times in your life,
probably with different answers each time you ask. By asking the question, you will learn more
about yourself, you will have the opportunity to refocus on the things that are
really important to you, then you might follow that question with the question
what’s next—and wait in expectation for what life offers you.
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