Hallelujah!
Dear Ones:
Our ministry theme for October is belonging. Consider this set of questions from the 20th-century Quaker teacher, Douglas Steere:
The ancient question, “Who am I?” inevitably leads to a deeper one: “Whose am I?”—because there is no identity outside of relationship. You cannot be a person by yourself. To ask “Whose am I” is to extend the question far beyond the little self-absorbed self, and wonder: Who needs you? Who loves you? To whom are you accountable? To whom do you answer? Whose life is altered by your choices? With whose life is your own bound up, inextricably, in obvious or invisible ways?
Steere’s premise is correct: “You cannot be a person by yourself.” Yet my sense is our larger society invites us more often than not to respond only to the question “Who am I?” as opposed to “Whose am I?” I feel this most poignantly right now as my high school senior goes through the process of applying to colleges. The fundamental question he is invited to answer in this process is “Who am I?” Similarly with any effort to find a job these days: Who am I? What value do I bring to this workplace? And certainly with the rise of social media over the last decade, people have more and more opportunities to broadcast to the world their answer to the question, “Who am I?”—their brand, their unique version of self, etc. Even in Unitarian Universalism we focus on this question. We contend that each person is free to choose their own spiritual path, their own beliefs. We build our own theology. “Who am I?”
To be sure, it is a good thing to know who we are. But if we only focus on knowing who we are, we risk forgetting where we are from, what forces have shaped us, and how various communities hold us, support us, and send us forth into the world. We risk forgetting whose we are. So, I’d like to suggest an exercise for the month of October. Notice how often you are encouraged to answer the question “who am I?” vs. how often you are encouraged to answer the question “whose am I?” “Who am I” questions will have to do with being your best self, or speaking your truth, or sharing what you are passionate about.
“Who am I” questions will have to do with you as a unique individual. But “Whose am I” questions will attempt to understand you as a member of groups—family, neighborhood, town/city, church, etc. These questions will sound more like Steere’s questions: Who needs you? Who loves you? To whom are you accountable? To whom do you answer? Whose life is altered by your choices? With whose life is your own bound up, inextricably, in obvious or invisible ways?
Please let me know what you learn from engaging in this exercise. I suspect we aren’t invited to answer the “Whose am I” questions enough. That is, we aren’t invited to reflect on and share with others the deeper, interconnected parts of ourselves. And yet we need to be in touch with these parts of ourselves. We need to have the “Whose we are” questions in our lives, because we have no life without them. You cannot be a person by yourself.
As UUs were are well-practiced at asking “Who we are.” But we need to work on “Whose we are.” We do have answers to this question: we belong to the Earth. We belong to Nature. We belong to the divine. We belong to spirit of life. We belong to our wider community. And, perhaps most importantly, we belong to each other. Whose are you?
Amen and blessed be.
With love,
—Rev. Josh
