Knowing Me by Benjamin Zephaniah.
I don't often get the chance to reflect on something written by a Brummie West Indian and Ethiopian poet. But then I'm not just reflecting on something by a Brummie West Indian and Ethiopian poet, I'm reflecting on something written by Benjamin Zephaniah, and even then that's not enough because Benjamin Zephaniah is not just a name either.
The whole charade of identity affects us all.
We try to become something completely, to mould ourselves to a brand as if in doing so we become perfect. We should not seek to become the best Christian by becoming the best Protestant or Catholic, the best Roman- or Anglo- Catholic, the best Prayer Book Catholic or Anglo-Papalist, the best N.O. Anglo-Papalist or Tridentine Anglo-Papalist. That way we whittle down the groups with whom we are prepared to interact to ourselves, a single point spinning aimlessly in our own solitude.
Nor should we seek to become the perfect Roman Catholic by trying to commit mutilation of the person God created in trying to turn ourselves into a perfect replica of Papa Benedict?
In the West, we each have a tendency to have an identity crisis. This is due to the rampant individualisation which tells us that we are free to become what we want ourselves to be, and thus we try to discover who we want ourselves to be. We mould ourselves with plastic surgery, mindset thinking and soul-cleansing, follow the latest fad of fashion designed to bring out "the real you" and the result? Identity crisis!
As soon as we realise that God created us and that He has set us free to become the people that He created, the better. What He created is truly beautiful and what we do to ourselves is to take the lily of the field, re-perfume it with Davidoff, spray it pink, and carve up the petals with a pair of scissors so that they spell out "this is me"! By carving ourselves up, we make ourselves smaller, less the person that God made us to be.
We need to be ourselves in the context of other people. We need to have an "identify" crisis by looking out for people with whom we can identify ourselves in as many different ways as possible. We need not have friends that agree with us. It is possible for an Anglo-Papalist to have a close friend who is a Prayer-Book Catholic. The fact that a difference in Ecclesiology exists does nothing to destroy the fact that they identify with being Christians together. They are individuals that identify in a broad aspect of faith. Unfortunately this is not the case throughout the Catholic Anglican and Anglican Catholic spectrum.
Differences and similarities between human beings need to be seen together in context. Having differences should not be the seen as the privation of being able to identify with the other. Likewise having similarities should not be seen as a route for the destruction of the individual.
Can you identify with me here?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Zephaniah (though speaking from a viewpoint I cannot have) says clearly and beautifully something I've often wanted to say, and you explicate it magnificently. Thank you!
Truly Christ did not take on human flesh in order to produce a kingdom of clones. Gloriously he became a fully human individual, filling precisely the place the Father had prepared for Him. He calls us to no less a life, and empowers us to begin to live it.
Me, I don't fit anywhere, but I don't have an identity crisis. I'm Ed, the very Ed that God created, striving mightily with His power to become what he intended that Ed to be - not striving to become what someone else wants me to be, even though it is true that the 'real me' is intended to be in union with those others. So far I've failed often and badly in the attempt, but, by God's help I will continue the effort.
ed
Post a Comment