Daughter Knot

 

There’s something about being away from what you do that helps to remind you of who you are.

Like most of us, I find the roles of my life seductive.  As if what I am called by any group of folks on any given day actually defines the substance of my life.    As if the work that I do bears weight on my value and gains me permission to be on the planet.  As if the status and credibility I carry, by virtue of these roles or this work, in any way measures my soul.  As if.  It can’t. 

I know this but I am caught up in it all just the same.  And I don’t even sense it.  Until I am away.  And  then it’s just me sitting on the dock doing nothing much really.  Not checking things off a list or anything at all that would make anyone notice anything about me except maybe that I come down here every evening to just sit.  And for a little bit, I am uncomfortable with this.

Yes, I think it’s good to press myself into my work.  When I’ve found myself fully engaged in what I do, sometimes in formal paid positions, sometimes as the mom of young children, sometimes as a volunteer, sometimes in a faraway place, this is a good space to be.  Waking up each day anticipating the difference I can make is a gift.  And if there are titles or bits of status and credibility that some (not all) of this work brings with it, then okay.  I hope can carry that lightly.  Because it’s not who I am.

Right?

Then who am I?

I admit that in this first stage of holidays called ‘decompression’  the seduction of my roles can leave me feeling adrift.   And in this particular post-60^th-birthday era of my life, with some significant changes looming ahead, the absence of the illusion of being so very badly needed, even just for this short time while I’m away right now, for now, is more than just a little unnerving.

Yet ironically, it’s here by the water I come again and again to what seems to be the deepest sense of myself.  I recall the name I boil down to when everything else is stripped away and there’s nothing I’m expected to do in this moment of being.    The presence of a Father in the absence of my striving reminds me that beyond all good and true names I might be called, the one that can’t ever change or be taken away or be forgotten .... is Daughter.

I wrap myself around and tight to this sense of me.  I experience in ways unexplainable His wrapping tight around me.   And we sit to watch the setting sun together.   Because nothing in this moment is about what I do.  It’s not. It’s about who I am. 

And actually, more than that, it’s about Who He is.