“What are you?”

Last week at dinner with a co-worker and his wife, his wife asked me, “So, what are you?” She wanted to know what I did for a living but I was taken back. Inside my mind I thought, “Wow, did she just tie me and my identity, my worth and my AM with my job?”

I responded, “I am a Human Being. If you want to know what I do, I work in Human Resources.” She was a bit surprised by my answer.

What a question. What am I?

I look into the mirror and I see me. Or do I?

I cut off the edge of a finger nail and cast it away. Am I less of me? Am I somehow less of me than I was before I clipped my nail?

I cut off some hair and drop it. Am I less of me now? No, as a matter of fact I feel no more or less of me than I did before I clipped my nail and cut my hair. In the very literal sense though, I guess I am some hundredths of a milligram in weight less than I was before. However, I am not just what I see – I look into the mirror and see the tool of me.

I drive past a billboard with a picture of a young woman and a surfboard. The woman is missing her left arm but yet she is clearly ready to go surfing from the setting and her swim suit. It reads “Rising Above.” Clearly she is not less of who she is without her arm too – as a matter of fact, the lack of her arm perhaps showed her more than ever before who she really was – something more than she previously knew (http://www.forbetterlife.org/billboards/rising-above , http://www.forbetterlife.org/images/pdf/vision.pdf).

What am I then? Who am I then? We, as brothers and sisters, are all similar in the core. If you go deep inside you, you will find it. What we see on the outside is a tool for who we really are – spirit and intelligence. This tool, this miraculous tool, amplifies that spirit within and creates opportunities for us that without this body we never could have experienced. We are light. We are intelligence. And we are our bodies as well. These things combined are us. The things people see are the manifestation of what is within. The works of kindness or greed, skill or shamble, beauty or sloppiness, virtue or vice are the manifestation of perhaps how in tune we are with what really is within.

If perception is reality, which in our heads it truly is, there are many who really are only what they see in the mirror and they feel it too.

When we confuse who we are with what we do and what we see only, we miss the true us. We are much more than a set of skills, a pretty face, a handsome physique, a pleasant voice. If we tie our identity to these outward things, when we grow old and wrinkly, lose our job, gain weight, no longer be able to play sports, etc., we will feel less worth, less self-esteem, less value, because we don’t know who we really are.

Who am I? I didn’t answer fully my colleague’s question. I am a son of God, created in His image, given His light within me, and growing towards Him to one day be like Him, God willing and I believing.

Who are you? His Child as well, born of divine heritage and destined for goodness and greatness. Don’t believe me? Do the exercise - cut your nail, look inside you, and then look upward towards God.