Know yourself, know that you are mortal

Last year I was invited to Parliament to speak at a forum on obesity, specifically to talk about men’s health. It was an incredible honour. As you can imagine security was tight. It was actually the week before the horrific terror attack that took place there. I will neer forget the sickening scenes that took place just seven days later, the terrible loss of innocent lives.

As I entered parliament I had to pass through metal detectors and thus had to empty the coins in my pocket out onto a tray for unspection. One of those coins was a sobriety chip. The security officer seemed very interested in what it was and asked me about it. I explained what it was for a few moments and then turned the coin over. On the back it read “To Thine Own Self Be True”, which I read out to her. she looked at me rather oddly and then dismissed me. I moved on into the day, speaking from my heart of my own expereinces in the hope to help others. It was a good day.

Being true to yourself, living with honesty, authenticity and integrity is key to recovery and I would say it is the key to living with virtue in this world.

The ancient Greeks believed that the ultimate aim for a person of virtue was to know themselves. There were many aphorism on this theme such as “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The key for the ancient Greeks was to know yourself. Now “Know thyself” has been understood in many ways but ultimately to know oneself is to know that you are mortal and live in such a way, fully a part of mortal life. They constantly guarded against the dangers of hubris, the idea that human beings were God’s. Yes we are made in the image of the Divine but we are not God’s and it is vital that we recognise our finite mortality. In many ways this is the beauty and the energy of our lives, the fact that they do not last for ever.

Know yourself, know that you are mortal. That is what it means to be truly human. The word human is etymologically linked to humility. We are not god’s we are finite, we are mortal. We cannot live wholly from ourselves, no one is totally self-reliant, self sufficient and we do not live for ever. To truly know yourself is to accept the finite nature of your humanity. This is a stepping stone to discovering yourself and your unique place in the circle of life.

The fact that we are mortal is not to say that we do not matter, quite the opposite actually. Our lives matter, how we live matters. We impact on the whole of creation and we impact on the lives around us. Just as all that has existed before impacts on who we are today, including our ancestors. No one person lives a life separate from those around them and the history that they come from. Our lives are not singular cellular ones. The whole history of life has brought us to the point we are at today and who we are is made up of from that.

This is beautifully illustrated By Thich Nhat Hahn, who wrote in “Present moment, wonderful moment”

“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.”

All that has been before is a part of who we are. We are not separate selves, to know ourselves is to know what made us who we are. To know who we are we need to know those who we are surrounded by, who help make us who we are and all those who existed before we did. How do we begin to know ourselves? By knowing the lives we are surrounded by. No one is an island. Then we begin to understand who we are and we can begin to know ourselves.

The book of Genesis describes humanity being made in God’s image, in God’s likeness. Now what on earth could this mean? Well image, from the Latin “imago” means reflection or portrait it does not mean exactly the same. I believe it is suggesting that each of us has something of Divine within us, that we are a reflection of the divine and that this brings a duty to humanity to reflect this image into the world in which we live. This is a real responsibility, to reflect the divine love into life, to incarnate it to bring it to life.

I believe that most of our human problems stem from our rejection of this, from our inability to see that we are children of love, formed from love. That this Divine spark is an aspect of our very human being. I know when I look back at my darkest days it is this that frightened me the most and so I rejected it. I know that I am not unique in this thinking about myself. Marianne Williamson beautifully illustrated this when she wrote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God?”

So who do you think you are? Oh and who do you think that everyone else is?

I believe that we are all formed from that same love, from that same image, every single one of us.

Now this puts a great responsibility on us as human beings, to make our lives matter in the short time that we have here on earth. What will our epitaphs read?

From time to time I am asked to conduct funerals for people who are not members of the congregations. Often they have had some connection in the past or are looking for something spiritual in nature but not too religious. Last year the family asked for the following poem to be included in the service.

The Dash – Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning..to the end.
He noted that first came her date of birth
And spoke the following date with tears, 1964-1994
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth..
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not, how much we own;
The cars..the house..the cash,
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard.
Are there things you”d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left,
That can still be rearranged.
If we could just slow down enough
To consider what”s true and real,
And always try to understand
The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger,
And show appreciation more
And love the people in our lives
Like we”ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect,
And more often wear a smile..
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy”s being read
With your life”s actions to rehash..
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?

Know yourself, know that you are mortal, but also know that how you live your mortal life really matters. It impacts on all that you meet and come into contact with. Each and every life matters, each is unique and each is vital and each has something to offer to the world.

You see we are all a part of this body that is life. Everything that we say and everything that we do matters, just as everything we do not say and everything that we do not do matters. This is why it matters how we see ourselves and one another, who we think we are and who we think one another is, for this will impact on how we live in the world.

To know yourself is to know that you are mortal. I believe that because of this, not despite it, it really matters how we live our lives, how we spend our dash.

We need to pay attention to who we think we are and therefore who we think others are. For if we see that we are formed in the image of divine love we will see that we have responsibility to this life that we lead and the history that we are a part of. If we do we can become champions of this life, we can become co-creators of the Love that is Divine.

By the way it’s never too late. Actually I suspect that it’s probably only later in life that we finally get to know ourselves. I’d like to share with you the following poem by “Now I become myself” by May Sarton

“Now I Become Myself” by May Sarton

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before—"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

To know thyself, to be who we truly are, who we were born to be, is no easy task. Sarton wrote this poem when she was 83 years old. It would seem that it took her a long time to truly know herself and become who she really was, something she wrote of in her memoirs and journals. I commend them to you, they are worthy of exploration.

It is no easy task to be who we truly are, to live openly, to live whole and holy lives. To “find our path of authentic service in the world.” You see we learn by following others from the day we are born. We learn to be like those others we are surrounded by, who made us who we are, rather than becoming who we truly are. It takes a long time to let go of the stabilisers of others and become wholly ourselves. For May Sarton it only really began after the death of her parents during middle age, actually about the age I am now.

Forrest Church had similar experiences it was only when he stopped living in his father’s shadow that he found the courage to truly become himself and give his true mortal gift to life. As he said:

"I found my calling. I answered a call that was mine, and not someone else’s." And went on to say "To envy another’s skills, looks, or gifts rather than embracing your own nature and call is to fail in two respects. In trying unsuccessfully to be who we aren’t, we fail to become who we are."

The key he said of course was to always “be who you are.”

This is the key of course. This is what it means to live holy lives. This is how we become a holy, an authentic presence in the world. This is how we serve the world by our presence and you know what it is never too later. This is how we fill in that dash and truly live our mortal lives. It can begin right here right now. May Sarton was 83 years old when she wrote “Now I become myself”. Maybe, we only truly become our true selves at the end of our physical being. That said we need to begin some where and the only place to begin is right here right now. Right here, right now is the only place we can not only know ourselves, but truly be ourselves, to not only know that we are mortal, but to truly live our mortal lives and give our unique gift to the life.

Let us make it so.