Identification

I'm having a really hard time dealing with the question of identity.

Who am I? Obvious answers pop out: I'm a Christian, a wife, and a mother. I'm a carmelite. I'm a friend. I'm a sister and a daughter. Then there are the occupational ones.... I'm a published writer. I'm a housekeeper. I'm a cook. I'm a minister of the gospel. I'm a teacher. I'm a nurse. I'm a doula. I'm a yogi. I'm a knitter.

All of these things are pieces of my identity that I'd like to keep. There are other things I'd like to add but haven't yet... like university graduate, or world traveller.

There come certain times in my life when I have to make decisions about piecing together that identity. I decide what shows to watch on TV and that forms me, or what books to read. I have to give up certain habits or ideas, and that also forms me. Or rather, in doing so, Christ forms His character in me.
One of the hardest things for me is letting go of those things which I WANTED to have in the first place.

Being French used to be something that mattered a great deal to me and at which I actively worked. It wasn't enough to be born and raised there--- once I came to the US I had to make French friends (the French Connection!) and cook french foods and find people to speak French with so that I didn't lose that. We watched French movies and dressed like french people, and read french books. We concerned ourselves with French issues. Every nationality represented in the US has this type of method of preservation of identity available to them. When I hung out with Swedish girls all the time, it was the identical process, we just at kottbollar and glogg instead of crepes and coffee.

Nowadays, I have virtually lost that French identity. I wear hand-me-downs that were given to me for the most part so I have completely lost my own sense of style and basically dress like an American. I have no one to speak French WITH, so I don't do that anymore. There is no cultural source of French food or entertainment or company, so I've pretty much forgotten-- or at least put out of my mind-- those things which made me "French." In fact, most people in this part of the country have a strong distaste for France and the French, so I can't even really discuss it with the locals. All I have left is a birth certificate and a funny name. And even, that, somehow, I have lost.

As my kids grow, they don't like to speak French because I'm the only one who does it with them. I wonder sometimes if it's even WORTH teaching them-- who will THEY use it with other than the once-a-month phone calls with distant relatives?

At the same time, I'm reluctant to lose it. I want to maintain this identity for no other reason than it is IMPORTANT to me, and its been with me all my life. In cleaving to my husband, I am asked to relinquish this part of me (by nature of things like his distaste for classically French cuisine or traditions which I would have, if I lived alone, implemented in my home) It is very hard to balance who I am with who HE is, because by the nature of his role and position, he does not appreciate those things "around him."

Now before you go off thinking that's unfair, consider that there are MANY things he holds dear which I am put off by and which I hope HE would lose. Should he cleave to MY culinary tastes, I would be asking him to LOSE those things which he grew up on and which create HIS identity--- like Carolina BBQ.

Marriage is a give and take, and the issue of our identity is paramount. As a couple, we have to have unity of purpose-- we have to follow those things which God has called us to. And in this life, and in our family, for right now, God has called us to Fayetteville, North Carolina, a wart on the face of America. God has called us to have more children than we can "afford" by the world's standards, to be in relationships which are less than effortless, and NOT to know with any certainty that we will ever see/experience those things of which we dream.

I may cry every year cutting my grandmother's Foie Gras at Christmas and setting up the Creche, but the fact is that the only place I know for SURE that I will see my grandmother or aunts and cousins again is in the Eucharist. To pine and dream that somehow, some way I will get back there and to look for any opportunity that "might" arise is not only wasteful but sinful. In doing so, I'm doing exactly what Jesus admonished us NOT to do--- I'm fretting about tomorrow.

It seems that my whole life has been about learning to do what's in front of me, to be present in every moment, to be content with what I have. To abandon myself completely to God's care and relinquish all sense of control.

And yet I sit here thinking about WHY and how we raise our children and I think about how sad it is that I have been fed for years that I am raising "champions and worldchangers." Are my kids going to make a difference? Maybe. But in the end, my kids are going to be just like me: a face in an ocean of humanity, a speck in time. A piece of dust.

Cleaving to my husband and to the "thing" which God is forming us, united, to be, is the most difficult task in front of me, because it means letting go of everything that "feels" good---- it means accepting that in this life, I will have trouble.

Because of the Gospel, I may never walk the streets of Marseille again. Because of the gospel, I may never arise to the stillness and quiet of my alpine home and let my children have the privilege of experience the sights and sounds which shaped me. Because of the gospel, my children may NEVER know the beautiful things I've seen and tasted and heard and carry in my heart.

The reason for that is that those things which "tie" me there are the very things I must walk away from, and often the very people from whom I must detach in order to walk into what God has willed for me. I am truly so selfish that I'm often willing to IGNORE a relational issue which must be addressed just so that I can have the peace of being connected to those things which my senses require for joy.

As a Christian, as a wife, as a Mother, as a Carmelite, I must make decisions which sometimes leave behind those people who connect me to that identity and which sometimes are my only link to that distant past for which my heart and senses long.

So now the task is to find solace-- to find in Christ that consolation which I know He, my Creator, is capable of giving me.



I have told you this so that through me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble, but be courageous-I have overcome the world!--John 16:33