Who Are You?

Who are you?

Who, who, who?

‘Cause I really want to know …

Who are you?

Who, who, who?

C’mon tell me …

Who are you?

Who, who, who?

As I sit here looking out over Carillon Beach I stumbled across this old song by none other than The Who repeatedly asking the haunting question, “Who are You?” How does one exactly answer this question? We are each so many things. But when you boil us down to our very essence, who are we?

I think many of us have forgotten just who we are, or worse yet, maybe have never really known. I find it ironic that it has only been in the past forty years that the concept of self-awareness has become so popular. Especially when I find that we are as a culture becoming progressively less self-aware. We are more self-absorbed but less self-aware. Most people don’t know who they are.

Have you ever watched the first few episodes of each American Idol season – you know, the ones where unimaginably untalented people audition for the show? Have you ever wondered whether its really possible that a person could be so unaware of his lack of talent? How can a person be twenty to thirty years old and not know? Did no one ever bother to tell them? Would that not be the loving thing to do? Yes, and that is the whole point. In a healthy context of loving relationships we come to know ourselves.

When we live outside of healthy community, we not only lose others, but we also lose ourselves.