When
two adults meet for the first time, early in the conversation one or both will
often ask, What do you do? A person's
career, profession, or employment often defines who a person is, both for the
person's own sense of self and for how other individuals perceive the person.
When I
retired from the Navy in 2005, I left a career in which uniform insignia
revealed a person's military specialty, seniority, and some of their
experiences. I was tired of my profession, seniority, and experiences defining
me. I wanted people to see me for myself.
Thus,
when new acquaintances asked me in our first conversation what I did, I often answered
that I was happily and comfortably unemployed. My response left a majority of inquirers
visibly discomfited. These persons seemed unable to cope with someone who
refused to define him or herself in terms of career, profession, or employment.
Even
when I visited my mother in a retirement community and observed residents talk
with a newcomer, the conversation frequently included considerable discussion
of what each person had done prior to retirement. Too often, what a person does
(or has done) becomes definitive of that person's identity and worth.
If spirit
is at the center of human existence, then who a person is should have
precedence over what a person does or did. Discussing employment histories can
be interesting and instructive. Discussing employment histories is also far
less intimate than is discussing who I am spiritually. I find it distressing
that frequently relationships never progress from things that properly reside
at life's periphery (e.g., employment) to things that hopefully constitute the
heart of a person's existence (e.g., her/his self-awareness, her/his aesthetic
sense or creativity, and most importantly her/his story of loving and being
loved).
Admittedly,
many relationships are appropriately casual and remain superficial. However, our
more intimate and enduring relationships are the source of life's meaning and
value. Revealing one's spirit to another person involves risk and
vulnerability. Will the other person respect who we are and not abuse our
confidence?
God
is no respecter of persons, that is, God values everyone equally regardless of a
person's career, achievements, or even their failures. Are you the person God
created you to be? What is the next step on the path that will lead you deeper
into the fullness of who God intended you to be? Are you a person of character
who embodies the virtues of love, faith, hope, justice, courage, temperance,
and prudence? Are you a person whom you would want others to emulate? Are you a
saint, that is, are you a person who lives the Christian life writ large?
One
of the principal reasons that I value attending worship, spiritual reading,
prayer, and spiritual conversations is that they afford me opportunities to
reflect analytically about those questions and to identify tentative answers.
Who
are you? Who did God create you to be? What are you doing to become that
person?
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