Sand Castle By The Sea

It was a bright and sunny day without a cloud in the sky. The beach was deserted except for the family with the small happy pre-school boy playing next with his shovel and bucket at the shore building what kids always build a sand castle. His little imagination had populated the castle with knights on their horses, damsels who admired them, and of course a handsome king and beautiful queen. The little boy was amazed at the story spinning in his head as it was exactly what he wanted it to be. It was a beautiful day and he was king of the castle.

Turning away he began to wade out into the ocean and that was really fun too. The water passed his ankles and then was up to his knees. Indeed he was a big boy now and he turned again toward the shore and took a last look at his parents lounging on the seaside. He was was growing large with each step out to sea. Soon he was a young man swimming and feeling the strength of a powerful strong arms and legs that could pull him across the waves. Deeper Still.

Things felt right and natural out in the sea and he knew he was made for swimming and really no longer even thought too much of his parents on the shore. The adventure that held his focus was farther out into the sea and he continued to swim. He continued to grow older with each stroke and in time the calm sea began to show the rough waves that precede a storm. Dark clouds arose and his arms began to feel fatigued. He had been swimming a long time now and had turned into a middle aged man. His young limbs were no longer young and to make matters worse the waves were giving strong resistance to his strokes but still he knew the only way to where he must go was farther out to see where it was deeper still. Deeper Still. Deeper Still.



Ohmygosh! Sharks! Lots of Sharks. In fear he swam away but they were much faster and he was to be their dinner meal and that was all but a certainty. He was in their territory and an adventure into the deep had been his goal so now he found himself to be the very goal and desire of the school of sharks.

Pain! These were real sharks with not the first shadow of compassion in their cold blooded bites.

They pulled him down. Deeper Still. Thousands of them now and he was their desire. He would be shared as a bloody dinner delight. Arms, legs, feet all the subjects of greedy teethy sharp chomps. It was natural for sharks and just what they do. It was just another day for them of feasting on what they found for feasting. Sharks do not have second thoughts about ripping apart the bodies of flesh they find. It is what they were made to do and they do it without hesitation. It is simply COLD and BURNS it is so COLD. It is NOT Human At ALL.

Totally eaten the pain was gone for the little boy become man. What next. Well nothing as he was gone. You can't have a next when you are not there to go forward. No more strokes. No more fatigued. No more Sharks to fear or fight. Sharks had shot their teeth-bullets right into him until he was blasted away into squat and fully eaten. "He" was now shark or sharks himself. Once he both feared and fled their fierceness and now he was the energy source for their cold heartless activity. They needed him to attack others like him.

Shark crap. You ever BEEN shark crap? It is less than nothing but still sorta something. Could there be anything more humble than shark crap? Who would have ever set as their goal in life to BE shark crap. Well this is certainly a long way from the shore and the beautiful Castle of his young dreams. Shark crap sinks to the very bottom of it all and there it falls on the GROUND at the BOTTOM and well becomes the bottom. What ya going to do? Sharks are not interested in the Bottom and really nothing and no one seems to be focused on it at all. The Bottom Ground is simply not interesting. No one puts their attention

Cold currents blow and MOVE about the bottom and drive its broken parts about and eventually they are in the rolling surf and onto the shore. There to be picked up by small chubby hands and put into the bucket and poured onto the next level of the growing castle where the Child is King. There they are king.

Over TIME big big waves crash upon the shore and overwhelm the castle and all is ruined. RUINED! All the time and effort and best dreams of the child dashed! All the form and beauty of the well placed sand ALL crashed and gone and flattened to the GROUND. One might think it was useless and purposeless and depressive as an exercise in futility at best.

BUT, HOWEVER, and in a surprising UNEXPECTED- THEN- then the child remembers that THEY had gone to the beach together and looks up to see his father and mother with outstretched arms. Oh yes,- home. Home was NOT the beach, NOT the castle,waves or sharks. Embraced by his father and seeing mother smile it was NOW-TIME to go home . They walked all the way home on the GROUND and in the evening they lay down upon the GROUND and dreamed dreams of castles, and waves, and sharks and adventures with knights and damsels and children and parents and home.

And scary,painful, joyful, meaningful dreams they were! They were dreams of meaning not at all boreing like the GROUND. They were dreams of the secret swimmer who swims ever into another day.

Nature and Civilization

In the small town where I grew up there were two highways that intersected in the middle of town and lead in four directions out into the rest of the world. At a certain distance in each direction there would be a town limit sign with the name of our little town Hayneville on it. That was a marked boundary where the civilization of our town began. Civilization loves lines and boundaries. City parks seem to acknowledge that we need nature and are nature ourselves but they are in the city. City parks have sidewalks and street lamps and water fountains and lots of things that can not be found in the raw jungle. Sometimes we need real nature to remind us of primal things so we go to the desert or lake or sea or mountains where the focus is pointed to the uncivilized.



Chaos and Nature are scary in that there the wolf slaughters the lamb and death and destruction are as common as birth and creation. Things seem out of control in nature but are they really out of control? Could it be that they are out of the control of the city government but that nature does have its laws. Physics teaches about those laws and they could care less what the kings, mayors, voters, or legislatures have to say about them. The laws of nature are laws that do bring order in to what otherwise would be chaos. To the civilized eye nature may seem to totally out of control and it is when it comes to obeying the laws of mankind but it is not at all disorderly when it comes to the laws of physics. At the smallest and largest levels nature does seem to honor patterns and relationships that keep things controlled in a kind of natural if not civilized way. So just as there is nature right in the middle of the city as close as the nearest tree or lawn there is also order within nature making it anything but a simple chaos.



The fact is that civilization has its own idea of how to control matters with the goal of keeping pain, sickness, and death away from the tribes of mankind. The police are the thin blue line drawn to protect civilization from internal forces of chaos and the armies are the thin green line that is drawn protect the civilization from external forces. If these lines fall the civilization falls to chaos from internal or external lawlessness. Every grouping of mankind needs to maintain control both inside its ranks and beyond its ranks to be protected. Certain religious groups have rejected government as too secular but when they are isolated and there are no other governments to protect them from the internal chaotic actions of some of its members even the religious societies finally face the fact that they too will be destroyed unless they post their own sheriffs and Vatican guards. that protect a civilization from external forces of chaos.



There comes a time when the police and armies can not protect us from the laws of nature that seem like chaos to our civilized viewpoints. At those times we run to the central scientific bastion called the hospital and look for help from the final line of support for our bodies the doctors and nurses. They are indeed often just as heroic as the police and the military in their efforts to protect us from the chaotic forces that would take our lives in sicknesses unto death.



The miracles of modern science like the power of the modern weapons of military warfare have grown stronger in their ability to protect us and prolong the victory of nature to bring upon pain and death but death does win every time. Nature wins and just as when it is time for the mother to bring the baby into the world birth comes so too death comes no matter the intentions and efforts of mankind and civilization.



This is something true in every small town like the one I grew up in as a boy and it is equally true in the largest and most powerful cities in the history of the human race. There is a cemetery in every city and town as a reminder that civilization's laws and will have a limit as certain as the town limit. For some reason we love to put walls around our cemeteries as well. That might be an effort to keep death inside those walls once again away from the city of the living.


As someone walks along the ground they might walk past the city cemetery, the city park, the police station, the church and temple, the city hall, the schools, the library and even right to the hospital onto the maternity ward where the newborn babies lie screaming their first cries of life.
Underneath the entire city of man lies the earth itself. Civilization has nothing from which to rise than chaotic nature. Nothing could have produced the city of mankind but nature. There is no real city limit sign because it is made of metal from nature and the city wall is made of the materials of nature as well. The city is nature denying itself. The cities rise from the fields and then they crumble back into the fields. Man is made of dust and to the dust man returns. Man was dust and is dust and will be dust. So too the cities of man. Some may feel this is a statement of futility but if you look closer it is magic dust indeed! For those who have eyes to see could we be living in the field of miracles? Is it a field of death or a field of birth? Seems the potential for the actual is in the field and that potential is all but infinite and the field,the dust, the cities and the people of the cities are all one potential actuality. It is the uncontrollable awesome beautiful terrible life of nature and its cities of man. There is a miracle full of magic in the field where death blooms into life and life melts into death and the unformed forms and uniforms again. It is the parent and the grave of man and his cities which never once is detached from anything going on above and below its surface. Nature has the first and last word and speaks its word all the way in between the two. Should such a source and end and provider of man every be called anything other than mans friend. The Garden of Eden must certainly have been such a Friendly Field in which to build the cities of man.

Hardliners

The world in which we live in is clearly a place of important lines. On a map there are lines that when crossed change the entire government which enforces what is legal and illegal within their sphere of legislation. The present controversy over immigration is really about exactly how strong that line around the nation is to keep out persons that are for whatever reason not considered helpful to what happens on the inside of that national boundary. Within our nation there are hardliners who would want that line to be reinforced by a fence and if others had their way it might be as big as the great wall of China manned by the nation's armed forces. Others think the whole idea of these national boundaries is a thing to be changed or perhaps even eliminated. Even within our nation in the state of Texas there was big controversy when congressional district lines were redrawn in such a way that it was seen by some to allow for voters of one party and race to elect more representatives to congress than would have been possible under the old district boundaries. This can all seem very simple but when other people draw lines in different ways than you would draw them then you can bet there is going to be a conflict of words and perhaps weapons.

I guess we are really taking up the entire subject of definition. To define is to cut off a thing from all other things so that it can have an identity among others that is clear. Lines help with clarity as do good definitions. Have you ever thought about the fact that when someone goes to the moon and looks at the world as it really is there are no lines on earth to be seen at all. In fact it is not nature that draws lines but people who develop a civilization within nature that draw their own lines. I know it might be hard to imagine but there was a time when there were no national boundaries or governments to enforce them. Nature does not have hard lines but everything blends into the next thing. There was time when there were no correct religions or temple buildings. Much of our feeling of security in the face of chaos comes from our political boundries and religious boundries both of which seek to help us cope with the massive powerful sublime mystery about us. Nature is chaoticly free and unbound. That is a freedom that is really very scary as there are no boundaries to enclose or exclude. Civilization and culture build lines to keep the good in and keep the bad out. Sidewalks and nicely edged lawns are not a part of nature but of civilization. Nature just lets it all exist together "good" and "bad" and it is simply wild like a savage beast. Civilization ultimately wants to keep life in and exclude death. "Bad" things always lead more to pain and finally death than "good" things. It is true that one administration will draw lines in one time and place that are not the same as lines drawn by another administration but when the core motives of "why the line there and not here?" is examined it is because the "best" lines provide the most protection and strongest feelings of security. Rich people have big walls around their homes and country clubs have those walls for the same reasons. Some lines are very hard.

The various cultures and civilizations of this world have all drawn their lines with rulers and rules. Chaos is one frightful enemy and needs to be kept out. Lines keep chaos at bay at least for a while. Finally nature asserts her power over all the "line drawers" and the hurricane comes right across the "border" and blows away things on both sides of the "line" it never did recognize in the least.

Nations war against nations to protect or expand their identity lines. This is the power of man against man and it is the core of the political and military vision and power that defines the situation in which the modern world finds itself embattled. If we could see all the imaginary lines drawn by all the political and religious divisions in the world it would no doubt look like a ball of tangled string that would take a magician to untangle. Could be called a mess.

The "good" is of course on the "inside" of the boundaries men draw and the "bad" is always outside. The problem is that everyone is on the "bad" side of another person's lines. The tug of War becomes the norm in such a scenario. Those on the side of "God-good" are actively on a mission to either expand their boundaries to include more land and people into their own "inside" or they actively are seeking to destroy those "outside" of their boundaries. Of course God is on their side. Morality and charity is limited to those "inside the lines that have been drawn by the leadership of one "group".

Of course this goes beyond geographical lines to religious, political, economic and even aesthetic lines. The beautiful wish to exclude the ugly from their "set". Hollywood has its own city limits. All the while nature watches and seems to laugh and subjects the entirety to its uniform "rules". Man had sought to exclude nature and its unity and in the end finally realizes that all walls of man will be laid low. Every kingdom of the individual and the nation state is destroyed along with all "holy temples" and all revealed for the prideful illusion that it was. There really never were lines in nature at all and the social contract between mankind was only a part of nature and like autumn turning to winter each vanishes in its turn.

What if mankind could come to terms with the reality about us instead of seeking to create artificial kingdoms? What if we lived according to what is rather than what we would create as a "better" alternative. What if governments , theories, visions , and identities were viewed from a higher universal perspective that was inclusive rather than exclusive? What if the line between inclusive and exclusive were devalued. What if we accepted death and pain as just as ordinary and normal as life and pleasure? They really are all about us and no man made kingdom can exclude the "bad" or finally capture all the "good". What if we had the courage to drop our fear of those on the other side of the "lines"? What if we realized that mankind did not rule in the final analysis and we took ourselves much less seriously? Might the true "God" rise and scatter all our idols like the TRUTH revealing a lie? Could we see the commonality we share with those about us in new ways? What if the line was drawn in a circle around the Earth? Isn't that the way nature has drawn it? In fact there are really no lines drawn at all except by the warring, cutting, definining, tension laden, fearful mind of man. What would happen to our "world" if all lines were gone. ALL lines? Would it be the chaos we FEAR or would it be the reality that has given us all we have ever known from our birth to this very moment and never gave a second thought to all our lines? Would our decision to drop lines have any more effect on the nature about us and within us as our prideful decision to create the lines in the first place? There would in fact be no change at all with nature which includes mankind. When the lines of a district are redrawn by the man made government the flowers are not impressed. Perhaps we draw lines because we fear the unknown and in fact the unknown is on both sides of every line we have ever drawn or re-drawn. Hardliners are all about us with their weapons in hand bringing slaughter to their own brothers and sisters on the other "side" of lines they have drawn and then defended or expanded. Often it is the sword that draws the line with blood. Did we ourselves create the "sides" and then pick up weapons to slaughter one another for being on the wrong side of it? How strange that from two different perspectives the "good" and the "evil" are on both sides of the lines while some pretend that the good is on one side and the evil on the other.

Wasn't it the knowledge of good and evil that got us in this fix in the first place? Could it be the pride of being "good" is the enemy of us all. Could the death that we so fear be really a "passing over" lines that we ourselves have drawn? Hmmmm
I guess we will just have to SEE. Perhaps so loving the WORLD rather than just those on our side of the "lines" might be something we should consider . Could there be a "kingdom" that rather than setting up new lines becomes clear or revealed only when all other lines are erased and this causes all walls, ALL walls fall down. In such a kingdom judgement would be impossible; peace would replace conflict between "sides"; and joy of wholeness would reign. Very precious and strong idols would have to be released and buried dead. In fact perhaps what is called for is a death to lines and a resurrection to a new kingdom. Could that change take place within us where the lines were created in the first place? The line between death and life would also be gone and so we might say the last enemy of death itself was OVER come. Is there really one more line to be "crossed" before we enter eternity or is there no line but one of our own making there as well? Could eternity be here like a kingdome in our midst once we no longer see lines? God would stare us in the face but perhaps this real God would not have lines all about "Him" to form one more line drawn image. This God would be one that would not truck any image which would just seek to limit him within and without. Without lines to form an image God would not have an inside or outside at all. Infinity and Eternity and the real God don't do well with lines. The manger, the cross and Easter would know no lines. Both heaven and nature would sing and the kingdomS of this world would become the kingdom of God who every has been the lord of both life and death, cradle and cross. God would indeed be all in all and there would be no godS before Him. Until such a "time" there will be wars and rumors of wars both within men of "worldly" kingdoms and in the "world" about them. Death like a spectre will hold all in these "kingdoms" in fear causing the citizens of such worldly kingdoms to build one wall after another to keep that Wolf out of their little straw houses.

Could it be our clearly defined and cherished "images" of what is "good" are only idols of death breathing fear into our hearts.
ONE little WORD will fell them but all our words only add fuel to their fire. The "Hardliners" do the bidding of idols with swords in hands and sharp words in their mouths. Such zealots never seeing the Silent Word Sleeping in the midst of a Silent Night. Perhaps baptism was never meant to take us from the bad side and put us on the good side but rather it was meant to be the death of us altogether along with our kingdom of sides. That is the real death not the imaginary death most people think they clearly see and then fear all their lives until the actual death comes to expose their dearly held lie.

Immigration from "here" to "there" is only a problem if there is a real boundry and hardliners to hold up the wall. The hardliners and their "walls" -"both" vanish in the arms of death which also in its turn vanishes in the face of LIFE. LIFE alone remains and that is indeed good news. When that happens all the children leave children's church and go to Big Church (which is really the same thing) when the lines are removed from our minds and they are renewed by the one WORD which is God who has no hard lines at all. When will we forget the idea of God taking our side and realize that God is ever and eternally over all.

Authority

The author of a book is the unquestioned source of the things within that book. That might be an example of unquestioned authority for the characters in the book if such characters were looking for someone to give them a tip on what was going on in their story. When little children are born they really do need some guidance to navigate the rough waters of life. Parents know this and tend to keep close watch on their little ships and keep them close to harbor and home knowing that the waves of live would soon swamp their little boats maned by captains with little sea experience. Parents shepherd their children like little lambs who do not know the difference between a wolf and a puppy. Thank God!










The relationship between parent and child is a very basic one but it begins to change a little as the child explores the world beyond the home. I will never forget when our youngest daughter went off to pre-school and instead of calling toilet paper by that name she insisted that the teach said it was "tissue". Another authority had come into her life and that was something new. It was a change but that change happens to us many times as we continue to grow and mature.
When the child is very small the parent is like a "god" with every word being the final truth for the child. When the child becomes a teenager the parent can seem like "the devil" because the parent is the adversary to everything new the adolescent wants to try to form their own independent identity. Finally in young adulthood the child is able to see the parent as a friend and peer if the relationship has survived this change. It is as if the child was promoted and the parent demoted and both enabled to embrace and value one another as long time beloved friends.








Not only can time change authorities but so can geography. The King of England does not have much authority in the United States these days and time has changed his authority even in England it seems. The religious authorities in the United States are not taken very seriously in China by the majority of the population there. It would seem that time and space seem to have a great deal to do with what one considers to be the important and proper authority.

In addition weaker authorities seem to give way to greater and stronger ones. For example the mayor looks like a big shot until the governor arrives and even that politician takes a lower seat as the president enters. Strength and authority are wed in ways we need to consider and one brings to mind the pecking order among hens in the barnyard that the strongest is often the leader of the pack in many arenas. That strength might be physical, political, mental, moral or mystical. Leaders may lead in many ways. It seems to be the leader who determines for their following group what is to be considered the authority for their lives. Sometimes the leader simply is the authority like a king would be but at other times the leader decides what the group should look to for authority. For example Martin Luther pointed his followers to the Bible as the source of authority as opposed to the Pope. We might notice also that it was Luther who then determined what the Bible said at least until another leader gathered a following that differed in its interpretation of the Bible. Then that might occasion a debate between the leaders who both agreed that the Bible was to be the authority but that good reason must determine what the Bible was saying.
Other leaders said that Reason itself was to be the authority and that the Bible was unreasonable altogether. Kings, Charismatic leaders, Popes and Gurus, physically strong warriors, brilliant free thinkers have all functioned as "authorities". The rub however is that when one who is stronger arrives it is clear to the crowd that their "authority" has been trumped. This can be a time of great transition, challenge and change.







What can be really confusing is that life is composed of many different competing interests and authorities can come in many brands and flavors each seeking to be the last word on various things. Some authorities try to become more and more inclusive in their expertise so that it would almost be that people would look to them for the final answers on just about everything. In some cults the leader wants to make decisions for all their followers on just about every minor matter involved in their lives. It is somewhat similar to the parent with very small children once again. The small child or one who really wants to be a small child again might really appreciate having someone to take all their responsibility away and simply tell them what to do, and say and even what is ok to think. Life is simpler with massive authority even if it is somewhat limiting for those who wish to grow up.






Time, Space, Strength, all can give way to new leadership. One Pope or King dies and the next one jumps right in the drivers seat without the car even slowing down for much more than a little speed bump. Authorities are world shapers and world changers. They are leaders. They are like the mother and fathers of the world family from age to age. Some are more oppressive than others both of those within their group and those outside of their groups. Some leaders are just better than others. There are leaders in religion, politics, economics, and the arts. Some just come along and maintain the status quo while others due to their times and their personalities move the crowds in a different direction. Some value freedom to change more than they value the treasures of tradition while others think the direction is certainly in a golden age gone by which needs to be recovered from the lack of discipline and order evidenced all about them. After the world has had its fill of one of these they usually begin to call for the other once more. When things get to chaotic and uncertain the call goes out for the strong man to come and settle the situation down. When boredom sets in and decay is about even the dumbest person knows that something needs to change from the horrible status quo. The impulse for individual freedom is soon balanced with the drive for group survival. Every tick needs its tock as time moves on and authorities come and go. In one place it is tock and another place it is tick. Time Geography and Strength all have something to say about what authority is needed to set things right. In one time and place it is a certain kind of strength that is called for to direct the ship of life in the storms about it at that place. In another place and age the situation calls for different leadership. Authorities must match with their times and place or it is like having the head of a lion on the body of a duck. Each time and place calls for a certain kind of strength to lead us at that moment.






Life so changes that to keep giving the same answer to every situation is as foolish as always turning left or always turning right. Someone who does that will soon discover they are only going in circles. But perhaps circles can be ok but don't expect too many authorities to tell you that. The authority will usually be at the center of things so you must leave the things on the surface and go to the very heart of the matter into its core and very essence to find out what is basic and fundamental and the final authority for us all.

I and I-dentity

Today I am thinking about the various identities I have had in my life and how dependent they have been on the various contexts within which I was living at the time. It is impossible to be the “youngest child” without a family in which to have that identity. I guess that is where I started as the “youngest child” but I did not realize that this identity was dependent on certain factors that were certainly not me but instead given by the context in which I discovered myself. First I needed parents and then my siblings in order for me to even “choose” or “accept” that identity. No one can be the youngest child in a void but must first have an entire cast of peer characters within which to take that role. That would seem to be the case with every “identity”.

No question everyone in my family was a character and each one of them helped me “discover” who I was and that without a context my own understanding of who I was would have been much more difficult. Unclear contexts might bring a foggy identity. No question that my identity as the youngest child was one that was given to me by the others in the family. I did not choose that role but it was a given and all the others in the family agreed that was my identity and I was too small to question it. A baby blank page has little defense against those who come to write on it. If someone with amnesia woke up in a hospital they might need to ask others what happened. Immediately, like it or not, they would be a “patient”. In the family they might have been the youngest child but in the hospital they would be a patient. Youngest children are often treated differently than the others and the “patient” evokes all sorts of responses from others that non patients do not receive. The point here, perhaps too close to us to be noticed, is that our own self understanding is often given to us from others and the situations in which we find ourselves. Once in the context like a blank page we let others write description of who we are and then we respond by thinking, feeling and acting accordingly. Perhaps the land of the free is not as free as we would like it. I mean if others or the context chooses your identity for you that is a little restrictive right?

The flip side of this is that although there are no choices in much of this because the context simply provides it wholesale but without the context there would be no choices to be made at all. It is only within a context that we may choose alternative identities. Those newly chosen identities might be limited only by the vision we have of our “context”. One may be born in the small town but being there at least gives them the option to stay and choose to see its beauties or to move to the big town nearby and see things that are not available in the small town.

Relativity is the arena of choices and even so some choices are still impossible. Being the youngest child- unless a younger one comes along- is something that can not be changed with free choices. That said we should be able to choose other identities and even seek them out. Although I will always be the youngest child in the family into which I was born that is no longer the identity that I choose to define me mentally or emotionally. It is like a shirt still in the closet that I do not wear very often. It is a nice shirt. After first identity came in first grade Crown Bearer for the Homecoming Queen, and later things like good student, football player, fraternity man, Christian, husband, father, Army Officer, graduate student, pastor, mystic, grandfather, salesperson, Auburn football fan. These “identities” are like multiple layers of clothes that are worn all at once but each depends on a context that requires other people, places and things. It seems I can not be "me" without a context but that is a public me. That is a "me" that is in a role and which is compared to others in the same context. Sometimes I am a pedestrian and that identity is quickly gone as soon as I jump in the car or sit in a chair. I feel like a “lap” that vanishes as soon as I stand up! We might aquire too many identities and feel like someone with far to many clothes on for the day. Things might get burdensome with too much identity clothing on and make us feel odd and out of place when with our friends or while alone as well.


There are memories of learning to ride a bike and thinking, “Hey this is cool; I am a bike rider. But in time that identity was no longer as significant but it will always be a fun one. Perhaps you are like me and have many images of who you have been and even are today. Most of these “identities” do not remain central although many may remain with us our entire lives and be like old shoes we wear with comfort. Other identities like “the worst tennis player in the school” or “fat” are not happy ones but need not be worn too often. Even so there are tennis players who are actually worse than me and even one or two that are fatter. Funny context- this big world so even I may not be the fattest tennis player in a larger context.

All this signals that even though many of our identities are not chosen by us at some point we may choose which ones we wish to put on as we walk out for the day. If someone clothes themselves in lots of “bad and unhappy identities” their emotions will probably fall right in line with that role. Their pursuit of happiness and meaning in life will be dead in the water because the one pursuing it has put on a sad shirt at the start of the day. If we need to change our identity perhaps one clue might be to change our context. That might not need not be a geographical move but it would be a move as most changes of any kind are moves for the better or worse. Here are some contexts that are all about us most of the time Family, School, Community, State, Nation, Earth, Cosmos, Time and Eternity.




Some shoes are too tight for our lives and others may still feel a bit large for us at any given moment. Perhaps large happy “identities” need large happy contexts. Could it be that seeing a larger and deeper context for our lives might help us have an identity that brings deeper meaning and more joy? This is not a total solution because in a large crowd some people just feel like a number and seeing yourself as a small speck on the earth which is all but infinitesimal in the universe might not make some people feel very significant. Others might see the same point of view as a huge context that allows for all kinds of freedom in which to choose new identities. We may not be able to do much about where we start but perhaps we can do something to embrace a more fulfilling identity if we look beyond what is our immediate context at the moment. Do we need to look beyond the context others are trying to get us to accept as our only choice? A context usually has a context and what looked bad can turn into beauty with a fresh insight. The other question might be,” What would my identity be if there was no context at all?" Is there a “me” when all the shirts come off at the end of the day? Have I joined others in clothing myself with a bit too many identities which now have me a bit burdened? Would it be smarter to travel a little lighter and ask what I really need to be right now? Such a “me” has been there all along and is the one “I” who has lived throughout this entire wonderful adventure. How great it is that I and I-dentity are not the same! Sometimes something really neat does not need to be big at all! What is next!