Who Are You?

So I haven't updated this blog in quite a while.  And there is a very good reason for that.  I'm remarkably lazy.  So lazy, that I didn't even write a sermon for today's service.  Fortunately, one of my friends, Adam Grossheider, who is in the minor orders happened to write an essay recently, and agreed to fill in at the podium for me.  Here is his writing "Who Are you?"

Who Are You?

By Adam Grossheider

 

 

“Who are you?” This question is one of the most daunting questions we could ever be asked. The struggle of identity is probably one of the single most troublesome issues that humanity has ever faced. It is the root and cause of much internal conflict as individuals and, also on a larger social scale, within groups. When we aren’t worrying about who we are, we often distract ourselves by worrying about who other people are, or who they claim to be, and how we can or cannot relate to them. This is no doubt the seed of conflict that stretches back to the beginning of time.

 

 

I once had a trusted friend challenge me with this question, Who are you? Who were we at birth before our experiences shaped us, if even our names were chosen for us as well? Never before had I been blatantly stopped in my tracks, and I found myself in a confused moment, fighting the urge to answer immediately to satiate my upset ego. Did my friend want an answer? I don’t believe the question was anything more than a rhetorical one, but one that was meant to be a catalyst. I sat at my computer like a cartoon with a giant exclamation point over my head and a grumbling scribble in my thought bubble.

 

This question led to others, chief among them being “Where are you going?” Not only did I have no idea who the hell I was, but now I naturally faced the inevitable question of purpose. What am I doing with myself? I felt small, confused, and inept. My friend had dropped the mic and walked away, but with the best of intentions. So there I sat, slightly angry and disappointed at myself. Granted, this was not any sort of catastrophic dilemma. I certainly was annoyed that my immediate answers to the question were feeble and only revealed how hard my ego was fighting for self-importance. In the coming weeks, the question loomed and persisted.

 

Let’s change gears for a moment and put this into context. Since I am mostly interested and involved in the Western Mystery Traditions, I will relate this subject in terms of those with which I am most familiar with. Within the Initiatic structures and even the religious traditions, at certain points you are charged to create for yourself a new name. In the magical traditions such as the Golden Dawn or similar organizations, the Magical Motto is chosen early in the journey to represent your inspirations, or most importantly, your spiritual aspirations. Dean Wilson of the same affiliation reminds us that “It symbolizes the end of the old way of life and the beginning of a new.” This implies and requires that transformation take place, that forward movement is necessary for advancement, as opposed to any sort of empty accomplishment. Those who view the motto in this light are misunderstanding its purpose and possibly setting themselves up for difficulty, delusion, and ultimately failure.

 

 

Within Freemasonry, one does not choose any sort of mystical name, but something even more elusive; the Mark. The Mark is chosen as a personal insignia upon completing the Mark Master degree. This degree, in the American York Rite arrangement, is the 4th degree and beginning of the Chapter after completing the Lodge degrees. To understand the philosophical context of the purpose of the Mark, consider both the operative and speculative purposes. Within operative Masonry, the stonecutter would “mark” his work as a sign of completion and submitted it to the overseers for inspection. In Speculative masonry, the “works” are his Thoughts, Words, and Actions, and his Mark is the sign that he has taken full responsibility for his moral and spiritual endeavors. Within this degree, for those that explore the esoteric side of the Craft, the candidate finds that the work of square angles may represent the Physical world and Material things, and that the work of circular curves may represent Spiritual things. This is directly reflected in the two principal symbols of the fraternity, The Square and the Compasses; representing the active and passive interplay between Heaven and Earth, the Above and the Below, Body and Spirit, Man and God, etc. To me, the Square has also always been Human Intuition, and the Compasses were Divine Inspiration. Where we have our identity and purpose is where we meet in the middle.

 

I was told to take my Mark seriously, even if those administering my own degree had no intention of interpreting Freemasonry in an esoteric way whatsoever, so I did. I produced a sigil made of a word that represented a guide toward my highest aspirations morally and spiritually. This was, in a way, my new name. It makes me think of the symbolism of death and transformation within the Initiatic and even the Ecclesiastical traditions, black habits representing the new role of becoming “dead to the world”, truthfully becoming dedicated to new service to God and Man.

 

 

To get back on track, there’s that word again, identity; the struggle that dawns on everyone of us. Who are we, and where are we going? In Masonry we simply ask “Whence came you?”, and “What came you here to do?”, the answers to both being quite purposely ambiguous and equally unhelpful unless you are willing to meditate on the subject of identity and purpose. The real answers of course, are much more personal and incommunicable.

 

 

This brings me to a possible explanation. What if all we can claim to be is all we aspire to? A fixed identity is an all too comfortable, lazy, and dangerous attempt to satisfy the ego in the world of meaning, which is far from the world of truth. It is a safe illusion we indulge in regardless of our intentions. The truth is, we are constantly changing, adapting, growing, and learning. This is the real struggle of identity, knowing that we might not have a face behind the mask at all, even though we often try to cement ourselves into a category. This threatens our tendency to feel special and unique, while the Greater Mysteries has been described as becoming willing to give up all individuality in the name of the greater good.

 

 

Maybe this is it, that our aspirations are, for all immediate intents and purposes, our identity. Are we not shaped by our habits and goals, and are these not supposed to evolve on the spiritual path? I have not answered the question. I might never, and that no longer bothers me. I have a blurry idea that if my aspirations are noble and that my intentions and actions reflect them truthfully, I can honestly say that this is all the identity needs to be.

 

 

So where does this leave us? Don’t freak out over who you are or where you’re going, because you might not have the foggiest. Take time to form a goal worth striving for, and this journey towards that goal will truly shape who you are, and that may be all that matters in this life, and we can only hope to help others along the way.