To Thine Own Self Be True

I’ve been wrestling a lot with the concept of identity lately. 

Who am I?
What do I represent?
What kind of message do I send to others by the way I live?
What kind of message do I send to myself by the way I live?

These are tough questions.  But if I want to live sane, I feel like the rough questions need at the least, addressing and, at the most, answering.

I attend a church here in Charlotte.  Heck, it’s the reason I moved to Charlotte.  So obviously this is a thing that is important to me.  And yet, when the rubber meets the road, I’m more afraid of being “that guy” than being honest about who I am to others.  You know what I mean by “that guy”.  The one who throws Jesus into every conversation.  The one who makes you feel uncomfortable about who you are; about what you’re doing.  I don’t want to be that guy. 

Yet I wonder.  If in an effort to not be that guy, have I misplaced the urgency of what I believe.

And there’s the rub!  The minute I start talking about ‘things I believe’, perhaps you start to turn off.  You, and I if I’m honest, would rather me riff on a movie or talk about my favorite albums.  Anything but the important stuff. 

A major tenet I’ve been trying to incorporate into my life this last year is that of ‘integration’.  I want to live an integrated life.  One that’s not compartmentalized.  I don’t want to be the Nathan who collects comics to one person or the Nathan who goes to church to another person or the Nathan who’s an actor to still another person.  But that’s what we all do, isn’t it?  But living this way only produces a fractured person; an incomplete person. 

If I’m truly living an integrated life, the Nathan who waits tables and the Nathan who goes to church are one and the same.  The Nathan who loves music and collects comics and toys and who wants to be an actor with all his heart and who desires truth and beauty and to see the world made right and who wants to grow a family that is whole and healthy and who wants everyone around him to know that Jesus is doggedly interested in being a part of their lives are all the same person!

I just want to live for something.  And I’m finding that the things I’ve been living for are not all that important. 

I’m often reminded of a scene in Braveheart (see: movies!) when Robert the Bruce’s father is trying to get him to see the lost cause that is William Wallace and he says, “All men lose heart.”  Does anyone remember his response? 

“I don’t want to lose heart!  I want to believe, as he does!”

I don’t want to lose heart.  But living a fractured life, one of warring compartments produces nothing more than that: a lost heart. 

Help me live a life more integrated and I promise I’ll try to do the same for you.

~ by nathanrouse on September 7, 2007.