On a “Finding Your Roots” TV show recently, a woman said about her 7th or 8th great-grandfather, who had died very young, “It’s sad, because he never got the chance to find out who he really was.”
Really? That’s the point of your sadness? “Finding out who you really are” strikes me as very much a first world, 21st century problem. Most of the people of the past, and most of the people of the present, don’t have the luxury of worrying about who they really are.
Who am I? I’m the person who is trying to get by and survive. Beyond that, it’s all irrelevant.
Still, “being fully known” seems to be a big deal these days. Comedian Stephen Colbert parodies this by giving guests on “The Late Show” the Colbert Questionnaire, in which he asks questions like “What is the best sandwich?” and “Apples or oranges?” and proclaims at the end, “Now you are fully known!”
In every TV or movie drama there seems to be somebody who shouts, “You can't talk to me. You don’t know me!”
So, nobody ever gets to talk to anybody?
What arrogance. You think we’ve got the time to worry about getting to know you? You think getting to know you should be some sort of goal for others? Get a life.
Besides, isn’t being unknown the point? If people know who I really am, they’re going to run fast in the other direction. Most of us spend a lot of time and energy to keep people from fully knowing us.
If you do find out who you really are, for heaven’s sake, don’t tell the rest of us. It’s sort of like when Karen Armstrong was a nun. She told the mother superior, “You know, most of what we believe is nonsense.” The mother superior replied, “I know, but don’t tell the others.”
Even if you try to know someone, does it work? I’ve been married to the same woman for 63 years. Almost every day she says something that makes me think, “Who is this woman? Have I met her before?” And, no, it’s not just old age forgetfulness. This has been going on the full 63 years.
[I say “Married to the same woman for 63 years” rather than just “Married for 63 years” because there is a difference. At a class reunion, everyone was saying things like “This is my husband, we’ve been married 20 years.” “This is my wife, we’ve been married 19 years.” Kenny said, “I’ve been married 15 years, but none of them are here.”’
Does it make any difference to anyone, even to you, if you know who you are?
There is another way to see this, though. In the words of Charles Albert Tinley’s great hymn, Stand By Me: “In the midst of faults and failures, stand by me. In the midst of faults and failures, stand by me. When I’ve done the best I can, and my friends misunderstand, Thou who knowest all about me, stand by me.”
It really doesn’t matter if I know who I am, or if you know who I am, because God knows all about me… and accepts me, anyway.
John Robert McFarland
There is knowing and then there is KNOWING! The problem is the Anglican word for knowing is only one word. In German there are three words "verstayen", "kennen'', and "wissen". Wissen is to know something is true, the facts. Kennen is to know a person as to their name or identifying information. Verstayen is intimate, to understand a person, to see things as if you were them, to walk in their shoes. There are parts of Marilyn I do not know about (wissen). I can certanly pick her out in a crowd (kennen), and sometimes I am so close to her I know what she is thinking and feeling. Her pain is mine and her joy is mine. Sometimes when we are together and something happens, we know exactly how the other one is thinking and feeling. It's creepy and sometime funny. I kennen and wissen a lot of people, but there is only one I verstahen (sometimes).
ReplyDeleteI knew I should have studied German at IU. Then I might kennen what I don't verstehen, or something like that.
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