Who Am I?

          I was washing dishes and was thinking to myself of an existential crisis I may have just been confronted with: I have no one to live out with in my second year of university. Now that sounds more like what a narcissistic Gen-Y’s first-world problem – NOT an existential crisis. I certainly agree with that, hence I am struggling with my sense of feeling that I don’t belong to a community of friends here. It is difficult to speak against one’s feelings and emotions; though they are often irrational, rationale cannot simply sweep those doubts and questions of identity that arises at various points of our lives. However, I am sure I am not the only one who will face similar issues: not being sure of who I am.

          Going back to the dishes, I suddenly remembered a poem I came across and thought I’d share it as an encouragement, both to myself and to whoever that reads this. So here it is. The poem is ‘Wer bin ich?’ (Who am I?) by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my warders

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though it were mine to command. 

Who am I? They also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune        

Equally, smilingly, proudly,

Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,

Yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,

Trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation

Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!

                 The poem speaks for itself. There is a deep sense of doubting agony, uncertainty and introspection – all lonely questions. Questions that lead us away from its answer. In one simple couplet, Bonhoeffer turns all fears and apprehension on its head: my identity lies not in what people think of me or what I think of myself; it lies not in my personality or actions. Its source is not internal, it is external; yet it extends beyond the constraints of this material world.

          It lies in the character and action of God, who in violently succumbing to a disgrace of His identity – death on the cross - redeemed a scum of this world. And He lovingly adopted me and calls me ‘My child’, and I cry – in sorrow and in joy, in distress and in comfort, in persecution and in peace, in despair and in hope – ‘Abba! Father!’

          Does knowing this solve my real world problem? No.

          There is no promise that tomorrow I will have people who will invite me in to live out with them. I still might not feel that I belong. But clinging to this promise will help me face each day, and when the weight of matters causes my trembling feet to stumble and I fall, I need only to look up and see the Cross, and look beyond to the Empty Tomb to know that one day I’ll have a palace to live in, and what’s the best thing about it? I’ll be housemates with God!

          But for now, I guess it’s back to the dishes, and to everyday life…