How can I find One Who is nowhere? If I find Him, I myself will also be nowhere. And if I am nowhere how will I be able to say that 'I' am still 'I'? Will I exsist to rejoice in having found Him? How can I find Him who is everywhere? If He is everywhere, He is indeed close to me, and with me, and in me: perhaps He will turn out to be, in some mysterious way, my own self.
Merton, The Silent Life
We can help one another to find out the meaning of life, no doubt. But in the last analysis the individual person is responsible for living his faith and for “finding himself.” You cannot tell me who I am, and I cannot tell you who you are. Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.
Merton, No Man is an Island
I find both quotes poignant in how they deal with the question of self-identity. Who am I? What a wonderful question to explore. Father, husband, son, brother, grandson, nephew, friend, customer.....all accurate but all labels. Who am I beyond and behind these ideas and roles? I find that the 'names and numbers' others provide me pale in comparsion to the labels I provide for myself. However, I do box others in as much as I do myself. It makes it so much easier to say "oh that's John, he's....... In that moment I lose the freedom to to find out who he truly is, right now. Perhaps, watching the assumptions I make about myself and others is a beginning in discovering who I truly am?
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