3 minute read
Reflection
I’m glad I’m me
Major Alistair Dawson reflects on the meaning of authentic identity
AFTER 40 years of sitting in the congregation and listening to people speaking, can I make a confession that I trust will be good for my soul? If I know where they are going or what is coming, I switch off immediately.
I am dedicated to surprise – anything else is complete boredom. That is me! I love originality, creativity and, especially, things that grab my attention.
I used to be the leader of a men’s fellowship group and my rule of thumb was at least 20 surprises to the hour. For years, I have survived on the unexpected, and always delight in attention-grabbing opportunities.
We are all originals, and in Jesus we see the original and intended shape of our lives. People forget that God is the one who created us, who is driving us forward and who is recreating us into the person he wants us to be. To quote Harry Emerson Fosdick from The Meaning of Prayer, ‘He lifts us up from the obscurity of our littleness; he picks us out from the multitude of our fellows; he gives to our lives the dignity of his individual care.’
For those who holiday in Sheringham on the north Norfolk coast in August, the place to be on a Monday evening is The Salvation Army for the Visitors Night programme. It is unique and hilarious, offering a variety show that is second to none. Everybody attends with great expectations, but on one occasion the excitement looked as though it was heading for disaster: a little old woman shuffled her way on to the platform, struggled with her glasses and unfolded a crumpled sheet of paper. She was, we were told, going to read her poem.
We waited, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and in a hesitant fashion she read to us the following:
I don’t want to be anyone but me, For what you get is what you see. I almost destroyed myself Trying to be someone else. But now I breathe more easily, Although, perhaps, imperfectly.
But I’m an original. Please don’t tear me apart; I may need some restoration, But I’m still a work of art.
Questions have been asked of me About my humble pedigree, And some have stuck their knife in me To test my authenticity.
Sometimes a masterpiece I see, That could destroy my philosophy. Sometimes I wonder why I am here Or hold my pedigree so dear.
My Master says I cost the earth, When people ask him what I’m worth. Nor does he care what I have done, When I just tell him I’ve become His very own original.
The simplicity of her presentation was her greatest strength.
Many of us have poems that we like to repeat – so this is mine, which I found in a library book many years ago:
Lord, I’m glad I’m me. I don’t want to be anybody else. Today, I’m going to celebrate me, And it’s going to be a wonderful day.
Lord, I’m glad I’m me, Because I am unique and you made me so. I am unique, not only in my fingerprints, But in my personality. I can only be authentic if I am myself.
I believe you can see all the good there is in me, And that your love always transforms. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, And it is how you see me through your Eyes of love that really matters.
I want to borrow your eyes to see myself your way. Today, I shall walk tall. Yes, Lord, I’m glad I’m me!
I can always remember, as a nineyear-old in the Pentre Sunday school in south Wales, singing my little heart out with the chorus: ‘G-double-O-D, good,/ G-double-O-D, good,/ I want to be, more like Jesus,/ G-double-O-D, good.’
I didn’t want to be unique or original or different. I just wanted, in my own boyish way, to be like Jesus. Why? Because Jesus was me at my very best, my most accomplished. In fact, he was all that I wanted to be.
As the years have passed and I’ve grown older, I now realise what the poem in that library book was trying to tell me: I can only be authentic if I am myself.
