Becoming who you are

After watching clips of Tracy Morgan’s successful return to comedy as host of “Saturday Night Live,” I thought of something he said several months ago in an interview with “Today Show” host, Matt Lauer. It’s now been more than a year since Morgan’s near fatal car crash, but the interview took place only a few months after the collision.

“I love comedy,” Morgan said, “and I wonder how I’m gonna be funny again. Remembering my identity, what do I do?”

So much of who we are, or perceive ourselves to be, is attached to what we do. Morgan expressed his apprehension about being funny again. Making people laugh is for him a great part of “remembering” his identity.

We become the particular role we play, and failing to live up to the expectations others have of us in that role can be shameful to us.

But is being a comedian who Tracy Morgan really is? For any of us, is what we do who we are, really? Should your capacity for doing what you do suddenly be taken away, as Morgan feared it might be for him, would you still be you?

Who are you, really?

I’m a husband, a son, a brother, a father, a grandfather, a pastor, a writer, but who am I at my core?

Who is that “someone” you really are, beyond what people see while you work or go about fulfilling any number of roles you have in life?

It’s a question worth pondering.

And worth even more in answering.

Or else the person you are becoming may not really be “you.”

You might know that Marilyn Monroe was not Marilyn Monroe’s given name. She was actually born, Norma Jean Mortenson.

But who was she, really?

On the night Marilyn Monroe died, she turned on a tape recorder. Some of her last hours of life were recorded on tape. A reporter discovered the original recording and was puzzled by something he heard her saying. In the closing moments of her life, Marilyn Monroe could be heard repeating again and again, “Tony, Tony, oh Tony, where are you?”

Who was Tony? The reporter dug here and scratched there but continually came up clueless.

After more than a year of searching for Tony, the reporter was visiting a recording shop where Marilyn Monroe worked before she became a star. He talked to a store clerk who had actually worked with Monroe. And during the interview the clerk responded to a question the reporter asked with, “Tony would have liked that!”

The reporter was shocked. “Who is Tony?” the he asked.  The clerk explained that “Tony” had been Marilyn Monroe’s nickname for many years. Tony was in fact Marilyn Monroe herself.

On the night of her death she asked over and over again, “Tony, where are you?”

Did Marilyn Monroe, like so many people, die looking for her True Self?

So, how do you find that someone you really are?

The Franciscan monk and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, Richard Rohr, quotes Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself; everyone else is taken.”

For Rohr, your True Self is what makes you, you. It’s “who you are in God and who God is in you.” You began your life with a “divine DNA, an inner destiny…that knows the truth about you…an Imago Dei that begs to be allowed, to be fulfilled, and to show itself.”

It’s the mystery of Christ within you. It’s the Holy Spirit who finally chases you down, embraces you in love, and walks with you along the journey of life, pointing you heavenward while at one and the same time allowing you to reflect his presence in yourself, and thereby, along the walk, awakening within yourself the “you” you really are as you find yourself in God.

The Apostle Paul spoke of his “old self” being crucified with Christ. “It is no longer I who live,” he proclaimed,  “but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Having died to the old self, the False Self, you are freed to let Christ live in you as you become the person you are meant to be, your True Self.

Rather than tragically dying trying to find that person, you are free to let your True Self shine in all its fullness.

And there is no fear or shame in that.