Welcome to Issue #80 of Biblia Luna, the (approximately) weekly newsletter about the intersection of mental illness and faith, written by a pastor who lives with depression. I put the holy back in melancholy! If you find this newsletter helpful or interesting, please consider sharing it with someone else (or on social media). It might help them too. And it will help me grow my audience, and reach more people. Thank you!
Hopefully Tomorrow: Who Are You?
There’s a neat exercise you may have heard of called “Who are you?” It is sometimes used on retreats and team-building programs. It’s a very simple exercise. You pair up with one other person, and you ask them, “Who are you?” They answer with whatever comes to mind. You then ask again, “Who are you?” And they answer with something else. Keep doing this for a few minutes, and then switch sides, so they are now asking you who you are. It’s a fascinating way to get to know each other very quickly, and can even function as an ice-breaker game.
It's a deceptively simple exercise, but it can bring up some very deep answers. Who are you, really? Deep down, beyond your name and your career, who are you?
For some of us, that answer can get uncomfortable. If I were to play this game with you right now, I imagine my answers would begin “I’m Michael,” “I’m a writer,” “I’m a pastor,” “I’m a father,” or something like that. But before long, I’d be saying things like, “I’m a wreck,” “I’m worthless,” “I don’t know who I am,” “I’m empty.” Maybe. It all depends on when we played it, I guess, and how my mood was that day. Because our identities get all tangled up with our mental states, don’t they?
For instance, in my role as pastor, I have a very hard time believing that I’m an adequate or fairly good pastor, which is probably the case. It’s so much easier for me to believe that I am an outstanding pastor, or that I am a horrible pastor, when the truth is more than likely in the middle. So often I just can’t see beyond those extremes. When something goes well, it’s because I’m outstanding. When something goes poorly, it’s because I’m horrible. My identity is wrapped up in my emotional state.
Maybe this isn’t true for all of us. I have learned that it’s typical for Fours on the Enneagram like me to identify more with our emotions than other people do. (“Fours don’t have feelings; they are their feelings,” wrote Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile in The Road Back to You.) So maybe that’s why I’m like this, and maybe you don’t relate. But I still believe that for many of us, maybe most, our identities are filled with confusion and uncertainty.
Who are you?
Well, one thing I can say from my faith is that, no matter how I feel about myself, no matter what I think I am, what I truly am is a “child of God.” Through my faith, I can say that I am a baptized child of God, and that is who I really am, at my very core. I’m not sure if I actually believe that, but I want to believe it. I crave believing it. I want to believe that I am God’s creation, and that I am created good, but it’s so hard to do that. And so I just have to have faith in faith itself. I have to try to trust that God is really there, and that God is trustworthy. And if God is really there, and if God is trustworthy, than maybe God’s opinion of me is actually more accurate than my own.
This isn’t easy stuff. But diving deep into our identity isn’t supposed to be, I guess. But if it’s true, if all this God stuff I want to believe is true, then that means that who I am is a miracle, who I am is the salt of the earth, the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16). And that’s who I believe you are too, whether or not you have the same faith I do. I believe God made you (and yes, I mean you!) just like God made me.
Over on the blog…
I have been so busy writing lately! If you’re interested, check out the following things I’ve written in the past two weeks:
Sermon (based partly on last week’s Biblia Luna): The Crumbs of Grace
Labyrinths: 94 (Weatherly, PA), 93 (Hunlock Creek, PA), 92 (Sparta, NJ), 91 (Shillington, PA), 90 (Fountain Hill, PA)
How I transform anxiety into depression
Why I didn’t take a trip on Route 6
My thoughts on a tragedy at my church camp
Looking for a career?
Check out this article from CNN about why mental health jobs are expected to grow at a huge rate in coming years.
This Week’s Question
I’d really like to grow a conversation from this newsletter. So please consider leaving a comment with your answers to the questions I pose each week. This week’s question is:
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you end up doing it? Why or why not?
Biblia Blessing
The God of all consolation bless us in every way, grant us hope all the days of our life, restore us to health and grant us salvation, fill our heart with peace, and lead us to eternal life. Almighty God bless us, the Father, the + Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I took each opportunity as it presented itself to me and enjoyed the ride. I continue to live this way in retirement.
To have good esteem, I’m told, one must do esteem-able actions. I used to think I wouldn’t know whom i was in my life until I died and my life was complete. But- today as I pray, meditate, and try to live my life in service to others I find I draw strength of character in knowing that I help another. My idea of whom i am goes away in the wake of what I can do to help another. I love your posts Pastor Michael.