I am not what I own....
I saw someone on campus the other day wearing a shirt that read “I am not what I own,“ and have been thinking about it ever since. Its just so easy to get caught up in our culture of what we own... to find my identity in the car i drive, where i live, and the computer I own (especially since I *love* Apple!) Seriously. How do you fight such thought patterns?
Jessica met an ASU student a couple weeks ago who told her that she lives out of a hammock. She said that she found herself so attached to her stuff that she wanted to make a radical lifestyle change just to make sure she could live without her possessions. So she condensed everything she needed down to a small box of items, and sleeps in a hammock in her friends back yard. That amazes me.
I was also thinking about all the people that I love who have struggled with eating disorders, and how hard it is to be a female in our culture that idolizes the thin and beautiful. There are so many expectations we have on ourselves, and we are continually analyzing and judging, both ourselves and each other. Which made me realize that just as “I am not what I own“ it is also true that:
I am not what you see.
Who we really are has so very little to do with what we can see in the physical. How cool would it be if we could actually see each others soul instead of our physical bodies?? Actually, if you could see mine, I think it would be an old, overweight, African American woman who loves to laugh and calls everyone “honey.“
Jessica met an ASU student a couple weeks ago who told her that she lives out of a hammock. She said that she found herself so attached to her stuff that she wanted to make a radical lifestyle change just to make sure she could live without her possessions. So she condensed everything she needed down to a small box of items, and sleeps in a hammock in her friends back yard. That amazes me.
I was also thinking about all the people that I love who have struggled with eating disorders, and how hard it is to be a female in our culture that idolizes the thin and beautiful. There are so many expectations we have on ourselves, and we are continually analyzing and judging, both ourselves and each other. Which made me realize that just as “I am not what I own“ it is also true that:
I am not what you see.
Who we really are has so very little to do with what we can see in the physical. How cool would it be if we could actually see each others soul instead of our physical bodies?? Actually, if you could see mine, I think it would be an old, overweight, African American woman who loves to laugh and calls everyone “honey.“
posted by cindi at 1:32 PM
2 Comments:
we're all just living in temporary housing. some of us seemingly have better housing than others, some older looking some newer, but n-the-less, we're souls living in temp housing. drifters...just passing through. I'm glad that God sees our soul. and interestingly, on a number of occasions, Jesus reveals that its not so much our garments or outward appearance but more so it is what comes out of our mouths that reveal the condition of our souls. Mt. 12:34; 15:11
"Again, in a visual and highly literate culture, when we meet a person for the first time his visual appearance dims out the sound of the name, so that in self-defense we add: "How do you spell your name?" Whereas, in an ear culture, the SOUND of a man's name is the overwhelming fact, as Joyce knew when he said in Finnegans Wake, "Who gave you that numb?" For the name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers" - by guess who.
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