Sermon for Sunday - April 6, 2014: Who Are You?

I found myself possessing one of the first paintings of space which I had completed in 2000, right after my divorce.  This was the first of many works of art depicting space that I would do over the next few years.  Several of them are hanging in the boardroom of a radio observatory in the Netherlands.  But this one was special as it depicted my state of mind after the divorce.  My life was black and yet, in the darkness there was beauty and life.  The meteor depicts something new in my universe, something that cannot exist - love.  Now one would say that a meteor exists, and this would be true, but not in deep space.  A meteor is what we see burning through the Earth's atmosphere.  Until it hits an atmosphere and begins to burn up and leave the marvelous tail in it's wake, it is a meteoroid.  Suffice to say a burning meteoroid cannot exist without an atmosphere.  For me the meteor was love that could not exist in my space.  It was there, but it could not exist.

Of course, I was wrong.  I didn't know that love was right under my nose.  I didn't know Teresa.  She worked for the same company and I knew who she was.  We had spoken, and I suppose one could say we were acquaintances, and I knew she had recently lost her husband to cancer.  I had already burned through several other relationships and was not really looking for emotional attachment as much as I was cheap, meaningless, sex.  Again, I didn't know Teresa.

She was a stalker.  I say this with all love.  She was s stalker in the nicest way.  She was the kind of woman I had never met before.  Whereas I was used to ferreting out the wheat from the chaff among all the women around me, Terry had her sights set on one target - me.  I had never encountered a woman that wanted me in that emotional kind of way.  She asked me over for coffee and we talked.

She knows who I am.  She knows that I will never remarry.  She knows that love is difficult for me.  She knows that commitment does not come easy for me.  She knows that, for once in my life, it is all about me.  She knows that I am what I am, I will probably never change and she would be foolish to try.  I am the worst of all worlds for a relationship; ask any woman that has ever known me.  Having said this, we have been together for around twelve years.  She has retired to her ranch in Mexico and I will be retiring to assist my parents in Mississippi.  We don't have to be together to be together.  I think this works for both of us as we both like to have our own space.

What does this have to do with my Sunday Thought?  People are what they are.  You can teach a dog new tricks but, underneath, the dog is still a dog.  A person can be a reformed alcoholic but he is still an alcoholic.  You can't quit smoking cigarettes.  You can stop for the rest of your life, and when you die we can then say you had quit.  In the meantime, there is always the chance you can pick the habit back up.  So it is with who we are.

Look at your relationships with people around you.  Do you know these people and who they are?  Do you base your feelings for them on who you want them to be, in your own mind, or on what they truly are and have never denied?  If you like or love someone you must accept them for who they are, with all of their faults and foibles.  If you can't do this then you will find yourself either alone in the world or surrounded by people just like yourself.  How much fun is that?

I have spent the better part of sixty years being what I knew others wanted me to be, or becoming another person for the sake of national security.  I lost myself somewhere along this journey and have only recently found my path again.  It is still a slippery slope and I find myself making mistakes and errors in judgment constantly.  I forgave myself, finally, for the things I have done.  I have also come to realize that people are what they are, so I will not be asking forgiveness for being who I am.  I am what I am.

"It's hard for people to see you one way, but you're really the other way, so it's kind of like, "Who am I, who are you?"  Sometimes, I confuse even myself."  

-- Nicole Polizzi

I will get back into painting when I get to Mississippi.  I will also continue to write and to piss people off in the process.  I cannot control what people think, nor do I ever want to.  You are what you are.

Who are you?  In answering this question try to remember who you are is not as important as why you are.  I think that by knowing why you are, you can get a pretty good handle on who you are.  Love yourself as you would love those around you, in spite of their faults and their mistakes.  Learn to forgive, whether it is asked for or not.  Just as Jewish and Italian mothers seem to always be in a constant state of guilt, so we as humans must be in a constant state of forgiveness.  We are, after all, only human.

Have a marvelous Sunday.