How do you become yourself? God made each of us unique, and yet we all face constant pressure to be like others. I came across this wonderful quote by e. e. cummings hidden away in a file on my computer:
To be nobody-but-myself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
— e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
Margaret Marcuson
Tripp, thanks for these fascinating thoughts. I do think that if God has created each one of us to be unique, the more we live out of that uniqueness, the better off we are, and so is the church and the world.
Tripp
This has triggered a thousand different thoughts for me. How do we become ourselves when we are to die to Christ? This is the first one. I wonder if there are generational issues at work as well. How we were educated, taught to understand ourselves etc, will play into this. When I speak of the self at my church, the generations divide quickly. The Silent generation assumes that one must sacrifice. The Boomers assume that self-actualization is the ultimate goal. The X-ers are not sure what you are talking about. Finally, the Y/Milennials (sp) assume that the congregation exists so that they may find themselves.
So…
Yeah. This was a surprisingly fruitful and intriguing post for me. Thank you.