Soul Talk: Redefining Identity Part 3
The work of considering the soul identity is not something we do once and check it off the list. Knowing God and knowing self is an every day, every hour, every minute invitation. It’s a constant give and take, receiving and releasing, an embracing and letting go that occurs as we continually turn our lives toward God. And it’s recognizing those things that we’ve explored that we mistake for identity, such as our roles, titles, accomplishments, and measures of success. Today, we consider a final misunderstanding about identity.
Identity is not based on experiences and emotions. Of course, these elements impact and form our lives in certain ways, and from this pool of experience we offer ourselves to God. We exist within a given time and place as we enter into the history of the world, within a certain culture that shapes our world view. And these circumstances, as well as our physical being, can change our emotions and our values.
Yet, as Martin Laird writes in his book Into the Silent Land, “The mountain does not determine what sort of weather is happening but witnesses all the weather that comes and goes. The weather is our thoughts, changing moods, feelings, impressions, reactions…This is the human condition. But what we realize is that all these distractions are so much weather appearing on Mount Zion. When we recognize that we are Mount Zion, God’s holy dwelling place, and no longer suffer from the illusion that we are the weather, then we are free to let life be as it is at any given moment. We are no longer victims of our afflictive thoughts, but their vigilant witness, silent and free…” (pp 86, 91).
These experiences and emotions of life can change with the blink of an eye or over the slow passing of time or by changing political powers that be. They all play a vital role in the spiritual journey of human existence and how we recognize God in the midst of it all. But even beyond this reality of place and time we exist in a still truer identity beyond our circumstances.
So the question remains: If you strip it all away, the experiences, emotions, roles, accomplishments, what is left at the core? And as you consider this, how do you react to the idea of not necessarily removing it all, but rather looking beyond it all, to consider the core essence of being? For the next several weeks, I’ll switch gears to explore how we reclaim our identity. I hope you will join me on this journey either here as you read and process and comment, or in a one-on-one conversation in spiritual direction. Contact me to find out more about that.
