Becoming Me

In the Bob Dylan biopic “No Direction Home,“ Bob reflects back on his life and says, “As an artist, you can never get into a place where you’re thinking you’ve arrived anywhere. You’re always in a process of becoming. If you can get into that place [of becoming], you’re going to be O.K.” This is not a new idea to me nor unique to Dylan, but it struck a chord in my heart.

There are many things that I want: a steady paycheck, a house of my own, a child to love me, recognition, style, to be considered funny, erudite, and clever. These are the point where I would know I had arrived.

I want to be labeled. I want to be categorized. I want to be prejudiced against in the best possible way. I want the benefit of the doubt that comes from past achievement. I want my ego stroked. I want the validation that comes from television, money, and seeing my name in print.

But perhaps it is these vain garments that I must shed to unleash the “becoming” artist (and person, Christian, husband, friend, etc.) within me. I am starting to think that it is difficult to have something real to say, a thing that is important, something that may change the world, while also trying to make people love you. It is hard to be honest about who you are when you are also trying to make everyone happy.

I have reached a place where I have nothing left to hang my value on. I cannot make other people love me for what I can do. I cannot prove I am worthy of love by my academic thought, my skills as a preacher, my ability to make money, a full head of hair, or discipline to regularly write. Even the small amount of money I was contributing to our bank account from a part-part-time job is gone because work is slow.

I am nothing.

But perhaps this is a gift. That I have reached this point relatively early in my life might save me from the despair that often comes in old age. I’m sure there are people who are successful by whatever standards are applied to them who look back on their lives and think the same thing that I am thinking at twenty-seven. For some, the search for deeper meaning may only come after a lifetime of striving after the goals they set for themselves.

If God is involved in my life (and I hope so) maybe the reason I haven’t been vaulted into the realms of vocational success is that I have been given the particular grace of being forced to find a reason for doing things (work, play, prayer, write, read, etc.) that has nothing to do with money, or recognition, or establishing the reasons I deserve to be loved.

These days I understand a little more what it means in the Bible when it says that it is in our weakness that we are made strong. For if I can be loved now, with no dowry, and if I can accept the love that comes to me, then maybe I can let go of all those standards of success that I measure my “arrival” and instead embrace the “becoming” of my life.