Yahoo (10-05/2023)

There’s a game show on television now called “Hey Yahoo.” I have watched it a few times and actually enjoy guessing America’s most popular searches. The game involves teams trying to figure out “What were people searching for when they asked…” I am amazed at what people are going to the computer to search. But we are a society filled with searches, with searchers. I wonder how many people have asked Yahoo, “Where do I find myself?”

Finding myself has been a lifelong quest. For the first two decades of my life, I know I was looking in all the wrong places. I was seeking to know what others thought of me as if they held the secret for which I was searching. Honestly, it was the day my father told me to look at a crucifix and realize that “God takes care of good people” doesn’t look the way I thought it did that I began my search in earnest. It was that day that I began to seek in earnest myself by going to the only one who truly knew, my creator, my LORD. And the closer I draw to the LORD, the closer I come to myself. I can’t explain it; I just accept it.

I suspect it has to do with the fact in Genesis 1, “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.” If I want to know who I am, I must first discover who “I AM” is. The secret to me is within the Mystery of God, I realized. And sure enough, as I draw closer to the LORD and come to not just know about the LORD but know the LORD, I find I know myself better. For if the LORD is love, as I have found, then I am created for and called to love myself. We all are. And I’ve come to realize that unless my journey is because of my love for the LORD, others, and myself, I never will “find myself.”

After I realized that first truth, that first step of my journey in earnest, I realized that next I needed to look at what I was good at doing and what was it that brought me joy and energy? What did I do with “enthusiasm” (literally “God within”)? Little by little I am putting the pieces together in my quest. I am finding that I am a teacher, one who helps others to discover. This still doesn’t tell me who I am, but it tells me how I am to use who I am, the life given me.

At this point in my life, I have come to believe that I will not truly find the entire answer until I am with the LORD and that gives me even more energy for my search and journey. I suspect that it is only when I can behold the LORD beholding me, when I can see myself in the LORD’s eyes, that I will truly find myself. And so, every day I try to make progress on my journey to the LORD. It is, I am convinced, where I belong and where I will ultimately become myself.

As we continue our journey of faith, sustained in hope, fueled by love, let us recognize that our journey is meant to draw us closer to our LORD and in doing so, closer to the ones the LORD created us to be. Let us drop our resistance, let us open ourselves as fully as possible, let us invite the Spirit to guide us and grace us in our journey, in our search.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.