Many of us have had what is called a sophomoric crisis, me included.
What is a sophomoric crisis you ask? As the Latin hints at it is when we think
we know more than we do and begin to question our very identity. It happened to
me in either my sophomore year of high school or college, I can’t remember
which, when I wondered who was I really? Was I this middle class nerd who liked
the Grateful Dead? Or was I whatever my friends were? If they were tough guys,
then I was a tough guy, if they pretended to be erudite and smart, I pretended
to be erudite and smart. I felt like a chameleon, always changing my colors to
suit those around me. It was a real crisis. And then there was my worry that I
didn’t think I mattered at all. I decided to try a little experiment: I would
not go out of my way to reach any of my friends, stay in my room as much as
possible and see if anyone noticed or reached out to me. A full week went by
and nobody called. I was heartbroken: Nobody loves me, nobody cares, guess I
will just eat peaches and pears. Anyone
here ever tried that?
This was long before Facebook. But now I see this on FB
every once and a while. Someone will post. “Just checking to see if anyone will
miss me. Click like if you are still out there.” And then they are devastated that
nobody notices. Why would we do that to
ourselves? It’s like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.
“Be who you are” was one of Forrest Church’s great temperate
instructions, want what you have, do what you can, be who you are. Even when it pushes against sanity. Nytimes article about Milt Greek, a
schizophrenic living in Ohio who has been trying to channel his higher
delusions into a positive center. He
tries to ignore the voices of destruction.
But he does listen to the voices that implore him to make a better world. Being who we are means embracing our given
talents.
Thanksgiving 1993. A
soup kitchen on Calfax in South Bend, IN. The food was warm and there was plenty
of it. Half way through the meal the
door flew open and these two drunks came in pushing people this way and that,
shouting for something to eat. My first
reaction was to call the police but I didn’t.
Being the only male volunteer in the room, I yelled at them to keep it
down and stop pushing. When the first got to the front of line he wanted to
know what we were serving, although those weren’t his exact words. I told him and as he took the plate he
sniffed it and flung it back at me. I
ducked and the plate missed me, but the food went everywhere. I let loose a tirade that turned more than a
few heads since they all knew I was a minister and called the staff upstairs
who came down and had the two men escorted out.
As I cleaned up from the encounter I thought to myself “How ungrateful
can you be”? Here he had come for free
food, warmth and he had thrown it back in my face. I questioned whether I really did have the
guts to be a part of the solution. Not
answered easily. As I thought about that
incident, I began to realize that my reaction was in part the result of who I
was, a white, middle class man, just as his ungratefulness was a result of his
being. How many of us, having lived a
life full of violence, hunger and rejection would have been grateful for a
plate of stale food? I was looking from
the top down in life and he was looking from the bottom up; expecting him to be
grateful was a condition of who I was and not a condition of his life.
Truly living up to who we are sets the stage for us to make
our lives and the world a better place.
Learning who you are can take a lifetime. For some of us, it is very painful. Girls
that are born into boy’s bodies and boys born into girls bodies. Transgender
people are ridiculed, taunted, and are ten times more likely to be murdered
than any other identity group in the world.
My identity in life comes from knowing misfortune to be
occasional not constant; while for the drunk his identity is marked by an anger
that is the only response to a life of constant hardship. Not that he should have thrown the food at
me, but who he was and what he had to deal with played a large part in what he
did. To effectively undo a wrong we have
to look seriously at who we are. We
cannot do everything we think we can, no matter how much we want to. But we won’t know until we try; whether it is
starting again or healing some ancient hurt.
We are who we are, because we did everything we could, and when we could
do no more we rest secure in being who we are.
Who among us doesn’t carry a loss? Who among us was unable to do what we thought
we could? But don’t you see? If you tried, you still were caring enough to
be worthy. Because there is merit in
trying. There is redemption in every
attempt we have to be who we would dream we are. Sometimes we will fail but we try and are
saved. And that is thanks enough. And that is love.
Traditionally, religions have been about the task of
providing a set of beliefs upon which a person takes action. That is the meaning of ethics; the doing of a
moral understanding. But, as Dr. King
understood, we have to sometimes stand against what our religion tells us to
do. Reformations continue to evolve religious
understanding even today. I sense one
such reformation happening even in evangelical Christianity, not especially
known for embracing the troubles of this world.
Increasingly, conservative Christians are uniting with other groups to
affect positive change in our society.
No not on the so-called core values of
marriage and abortion, but in terms of global warming, the causes of
poverty and war.
When Dr. King wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” he
answered the charge by white and liberal colleagues that he was being too
radical. He decried the suggestion that
the status quo was good enough when the Kingdom of God on earth required a
challenge to that status quo. King asked
“was not Jesus an extremist for love; ‘love your enemies, bless them that curse
you, do good to them that you’? Was not
Amos an extremist for justice when he said ‘let justice roll down like waters
and righteousness like an ever flowing stream’?
…..was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist when he wrote ‘We hold these
truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal.’”….the question is we willing to do what it takes to
live out what we believe? Our identity
as privileged folks weighs on those who have so little privilege.
Eventually, I moved beyond worrying about whether or not I
mirrored other people. We all do to a certain extent. It’s our evolutionary imprinting,
but more importantly who I am is a result of what I do. Not in a job, but in
how we treat others, the kindness we express to strangers. The hope we have in
life, despite the sometimes overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As James
Baldwin who became one of the greatest African American writers of all time put
it: “An identity would seem to be arrived at by
the way in which the person faces and uses his experience." Here then is our work, to thy own self be
true, and to that truth we devote our best and most noble self.
With Grace and Grit, John
