Reflections
Written on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“Who am I this time?”
It’s a line from a Kurt Vonnegut short story.
It’s also a valid question I’ve asked myself from time to time. A question many of us ask ourselves.
Some perhaps never ask and subsequently never find out.
Are you someone who desires that we just live in peace, that all humankind live in peace?
Are you someone who wants to be left alone to build your own little palace or garden?
Are you someone who wants to see change by any means necessary?
Do you want to see it all torn down so you can rebuild it properly?
Are you someone who wants to scorch the Earth just to see it burn?
Who are you this time? Today. Now.
Are you someone who cares about others? Or are you someone who only cares for yourself?
If you feel justified in caring about yourself alone, then do you believe that everyone else is entitled to the same life choice? And if we are all entitled to live our own individual, isolated, uncaring lives, then we have no right to expect help, support, or encouragement from anyone else.
So when we are in trouble, we cannot ask for help. When we have lost everything, we cannot expect anyone to share what they have. When we speak in anger at another soul, we can fully understand their retaliation because it is what we would do.
What a way to live. What a way to see the world day by day. Us against them. And if them looks like us, then there must be something hidden within them that makes them not us, and therefore we can cut them loose and let them orbit out there on their own, alone and isolated, the way we are, the way we feel.
If that is what you feel.
Who am I this time, this day, this hour, this minute? Is this who I want to be, or is this who I was made to be? If so, why? And if so, is change possible? Desirable?
I won’t know who I am if I don’t ask the question: Who am I this time, today, now?
Listen for an answer.
And then …