Who am I?
Struggling with an identity crisis? Hear from Uncle Dietrich and take heart.
Who am I
Who am I? They often tell me
I would step from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I would talk to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I would bear the days of misfortune
Equably, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?
Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, March 4, 1946.
posted by Simone R. @ 12:23 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
Once again: a beauty from DB.
I often have moments in life when people make a comment about me or an aspect of my personality, and I think: "Do you even know me at all?!" Then comes the analysis ... "Maybe they know me and I don't know myself?!" Sometimes I feel like I'm the QUEEN of introspective, analytical thought about “Who am I?” It gets exhausting!
But you know, the older I get (and we all know I'm really old!), the more I realize what a wonderful thing it is to trust that I am known by Christ and belong to Him. Thanks Simone; this one provides great comfort for the people-pleaser.
I like this one, it is so true that so often other people try to give you an identity. I have found that the biggest lie the world tries to feed us is that: "what we do determines who we are": if you steal you are a thief, if you kill you are a murderer, if you sin you are a sinner and if you don't sin you are a saint. Most of our society lives in a permanent identity crisis, people try to fill the emptiness of not knowing who they are with anything you can think of: sport, career, money, drink, etc, etc. And even in Christian circles I see similar trends.
Of course the Bible gives us a very different perspective (and that comes through in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's poem). When we became Christians, God gave us a new identity: we are in Christ. Christ is our life. And that turns things upside down, because now my identity is as unchanging as God himself. In Christ (and that is nice little study) I am holy, I am righteous and I am a child of God. Nothing I do and nothing done to me can change that.
I am not a sinner saved by grace (even though I once used to be a sinner), I am now a saint (who unforuntately sins at times). Nowhere in the bible are Christians refered to as sinners, they are always saints. God did not give us the bible and say: 'Do this and you will be a good Christian', rather He says: 'I have made you a good Christian, full stop.' Whatever we do cannot make a difference to that. In fact if we really come to grips with our identity, it is our identity that starts detemining our behaviour, in stead of the other way around.
It is not our behaviour, but about our identity that makes us who we are, and I find that there is great freedom in that.
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free."
Post a Comment
<< Home