Ordinary Me

The concept of ‘finding oneself’ is, I suppose, plausible enough for someone so deluged by expectations of who they 'ought' to be in their formative years that they arrive at adulthood hopelessly muddled.  I, on the other hand, am well past my formative years and have had sufficient time to distinguish between the ‘me’ I am and the ‘me’ others see.  And there is the rub.  Having “found” myself quite some time ago, I have not fully accepted what I teach my children: that God made me who I am.  On purpose.  For a purpose.  An astounding number of 'Christian' books in the 'self-help' genre fill the 'Spirituality' section of Barnes & Noble.  My suspicion is that most are consumed by people who, like myself, have discovered 'me' and want to be 'not me'.  Perhaps not entirely transformed, but certainly, like plastic surgery, we yearn for a nip there and a tuck here in our personhood to make us more and less of who we are.  

I need here to distinguish between character and personality.  Character is what I do to abide by timeless moral principles, personality is how I reflect the inclinations and aptitudes that are somewhat hardwired, somewhat shaped by experience.  It is admirable to seek to improve character, a task that is never finished.  On the other hand, to try to remake a sparrow into an eagle is an exercise in despair.

My personality is marked by introversion, brooding thoughts, a preference for solitude to crowds, procrastination, a dread of meeting strangers, and can endure long conversations with only a very, very few choice people.  (You know who you are).  I would rather read than do just about anything else.  I enjoy my day job, which consists primarily of determining how to make data flowing through the circuitry of our corporate information systems more accurate and timely.  It is an enterprise both profoundly perplexing and profoundly dull to many and I have long since given up trying to explain exactly what it is I do to earn my bread.

So, is this all that God intended when He was assembling me, this ordinary life?  Because in the bulk of my experience as a Christian, I have given lots of lip service to the idea that God's love is not based on what I do, while at the same time admiring the spiritual achievements of others and feeling that 'ordinary' just doesn't measure up.  I want to be numbered with the wise, mighty and noble, rather than the foolish, weak, and lowly.

This dilemma was captured well in a recent World Magazine article.  Given the response to the article, I am relieved to find that I am not the only ordinary person in Christendom.