Who I Am
“Holes and Ink Don’t Scar Your Soul!” This was the slogan I read on a truck this week advertising a body art studio here in town. It reminded me that the current generation has a very profound understanding of the dichotomy of man - the mutual exclusivity of body and soul.
So we pierce and tattoo, brand and scar this body because it is merely a temporary housing for the soul - which is eternal.
Like bananas, we bruise fairly easily. After all, we are a pretty fragile being. And, also like bananas, the bruises don’t always show on the outside. In fact, the worst injuries are the deepest and least visible from without.
Our conversation today explores the human dichotomy and asks who I am at the core. Ultimately, what will remain when my body has returned to dust?
- What’s your favorite way to eat bananas?
- Share with us one of the things you wrote in crayon: your favorite thing, your least favorite thing, or something you would like to change about yourself.
- If you were to change on the inside, what would that look like on the outside?
October 28th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I have to disagree with the defination we used for Dichotomy, I just can’t agree that all the “peices” are seperate and distinct. I tend to take a more Holistic view of our body, Soul, Spirit, Mind, Will, Emotions.. etc… Although each has it’s place, function and job. I think they all mesh, and intermesh and some affecting others to greater and lesser degrees. Some are, I think, even parts of other things.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I agree with Dennis - that I don’t agree in a dichotomy of soul and body. If there *is* such a dichotomy, the answer to the 3rd question would be, simply, “nothing.”
I remember someone on Sunday made the sweeping statement that we can’t change. I have a close friend who also thinks this, but I just can’t agree. I’ve changed way too much recently to believe it.
October 28th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Actually, Luke, I have to agree with your friend, to a degree. I don’t think we can change… our nature. We have choices that fall within our lines, and allow us to act within our nature, but to truely “change” who we are, I think, requires and Act of God. I think that in this, being saved, is a “changing moment” a heart change, not by us, but by God.
In the old testament, God changed the name of several people. A name, I think, ment more to them then… it wasn’t an arbitarary something given to you at birth, but a defining of who you are and what you would become. God changed several peoples names, and I think at the same time, he changed them inside too. God’s name for them defined who they were. I think that he re-defined their nature at that point, changing them inside, and giving them a new name to remind them of that change.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Yeah, I know there are fundamental things about us that are only changed by the grace of God. But I don’t think this particular friend’s position would allow for that - I think she’s done with God anyway.
In any case, actively participating with God’s grace is something I believe we *can* do…
When Peter confessed Jesus as Christ, Jesus made the most striking proclamation of Peter’s change - in name, spirit, and authority.
Although Jesus re-named Simon Peter, there were times, seemingly when Peter displayed a mode of his former weakness, when Jesus called him by his old name - when he fell asleep in Gethsemane, when the disciples were arguing who would betray Jesus, after he had denied him (just before restoring him). [Luke 22:31; Mark 14:37; John 21:15-17]
Apparently then, though God can change us in a moment, we must also do our part to persist His changes or we can fall back into our old selves.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
In high school, gestalt was a word used for a painting. It meant that the painting was the sum of its parts. In stippling, looking at one dot or a group of dots did not give you a true understanding of the artist’s intent. You had to see the sum of the dots–the whole picture–in order to grasp the content. I am gestalt. I have many facets. I have many dots, and I am a work in progress. You may look at me and see an image, but it may not be the ultimate piece of art that God would have me to be. Anyone who knows me, only knows glimpses of who I am. It takes a long relationship to know who I have been and who I am, to truly say you KNOW me. Every time I’m hurt, a dot is misplaced or is the wrong color, and distorts the outward view you have of me. I have let others paint me in lieu of God, and that has only added to my complexity.
So I believe I am a work in progress. Just when I think I know myself, I surprise myself with a reaction. Just when I think I’ve dealt with my hurts, I find that I have more dots to contend with, or another person hurts me.
Thank goodness God knows who I am, dots and all.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:17 am
Interesting that you would ask this Jeff. I am struggling with “being who I am”, something my Priest challenged me with a few weeks ago. My prayers are powerful and connect well with me, but I am frustrated with integrating that power into ALL of my life. I love Jesus, I love how He changed me, and is changing the world. I am continually amazed how His people (you being one of them) are bringing the Kingdom into being in this fallen world. It is in the acts of love that I see His people doing that I see Jesus. He is my Way. I just don’t know how I could ‘be’ without Him. I have to say He is the core of my life also, and has become the central truth of my view of how things are. So somehow at my core, without my fleshly body, I hope I would reflect His being in my own.
But this is not the end, for it is my confirmed belief that at the core of the Incarnation, my belief that the Word was made flesh, that God entered and changed this created world. He has redeemed us and gives physicality to the Spirit. I believe that the Scriptures teach, and from what we can see in the ancient Church, the Christian hope of eternity is immortality in our own human bodies (Please let me get a face lift at least). In the general Resurrection, like Jesus, the first fruits of rising to a new and unending life in Him Who redeemed us.