WHO I AM

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who I am

image courtesy of photobucket.com

“Hello” – “My name is” _________ … is what was printed across the white and blue sticker. Everyone else had written their names in the blank with black magic marker. Uhhh… They handed my wife and I both one each. I looked at her with an almost straight face, just a hint of irritation that only she would be able to spot as I held the sticker deliberately out in front of me, glancing at it and at her.

She knows that look, that’s the look of, “You’re kiddin’ me right”? She gave me a quick glance with a slightly furrowed brow that no one else would catch. I knew it meant, “Don’t even start”! – “Can’t you just be normal like everyone else”? kind of a look. She won the battle of no words, only expressions. After all, it was her turn to win…. and the last time I refused to wear a sticker, I was a tad too explanatory with the host, it wasn’t worth it.

Being somewhat of a non-conformist naturally, I question things and sometimes things just don’t add up to me. I know they want everyone to be able to talk and call each other by name, but if a person doesn’t have photographic memory, what’s the point? If people don’t connect on a personal level they won’t have much chance of remembering a name.

A name is what we’re called, it’s what we answer to over the course of our lives, but a person’s name is just that; a name. It doesn’t begin to tell who a person really is in our modern world. A person is who they are inside. That person can portray any image they want to over a lifetime, playing a role, we can get to be pretty proficient at the image we’re flashing for the other eyes and ears.

We can answer when someone calls us by name, but it won’t begin to tell who we really are. There’s a big difference between, “What is your name,” and “Who are you”? What is it that defines us? Is it what we do? Not at all, but that’s the most popular answer because that’s the easiest way to hide from the truth.

I’m not sure I have a good answer to the question either. Often we want to share where we’re from when describing ourselves, that’s always interesting, but I don’t think that’s who we are either. I can use nouns and adjectives to describe who I am, but I think where we’re going might be the best way to describe who we are.

Remember when we were kids and someone asked who we were? That was a sight easier to answer wasn’t it? Our answers were always our names and who our parents were. Sometimes we’d tell the person asking about our siblings to help them figure out who we were.

The older I get the more I appreciate simplicity. All the words I could use to describe myself, husband, dad, uncle, and friend, naturally come up in conversation. But probably the best way to tell you who I am is to tell you who my Father is. You might have known my dad, but my Father’s house is where I’m headed when my race is run here…

While my name might not be written across my chest on a sticker…

It is written in my Father’s Book Of Life…

That’s who I am…