Blog 3129 – 05.25.2024

You’re Still You

There is a world of meaning to be found in the three little words that make up both the theme and title of today’s song. They remind me of those three little words that everyone woman and man wants to hear – “You’re so right.” Got you. You thought I was going to write, “I love you.” I am afraid most of us have a far harder time admitting the former than the latter.

But back to the three little word title of today’s song, “You’re Still You.” Do you have a strong sense of yourself or have you always let others define you? Do you know who you are? I mentioned yesterday and have pretty often over the nine years that I have been posting this daily blog that many spend a life time or perhaps several figuring out Who and Whose they really are.

A subset of people who call themselves Christians believe in a “born again” experience that makes them Christians. For a large portion of my life I bought into that line of thinking. As young boys my brother and I rode a big yellow school bus on several Sundays across town to a big Independent Baptist church called Highland Park Baptist. They had the largest children’s bus ministry in Chattanooga, Tennessee where we were born and grew up. Those church folk knocked on doors all over the city on Saturdays signing up kids with their parents permission to ride the bus to Sunday school and church on Sunday mornings. Their object was to get as many people “saved” or to be “born again” as they could.

Sunday school was interesting, but the long preaching service not so much so for the children. Sitting still and listening so long was a challenge for a wiggly bunch of youngsters so there were a lot of adult volunteers whose job it was to keep us quiet. In that first morning as I sat next to my little brother one on those men asked me if I had been born again and I said, “Yes.” My brother told our Mom all about the conversation when we got home and I remember her telling my brother, “Well, maybe he has.”

The term “born again” comes from a conversation that Jesus had with a rich man named Nicodemus in which Jesus told Nick than in order to enter the kingdom of heaven he must be born again. To those who point to an experience they had once upon a time that they believe makes them better than others I say “You’re still you.” And to those who fear that some experience has forever altered them beyond recognition and perhaps ruined their chances for happiness and acceptance, I say, “You’re still you.”

The longer I live the more I believe that my answer in church so many years ago, was true in a far larger sense than the narrow question. I have been born again many times and will be perhaps many more. We have most likely met before playing different roles and will meet again and again. You’re still you and I’m still me.

Your friend and intrepid fellow traveler in time and space,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z0En_TFqs8FXkdNoX-vyjxD1d7PjEJYu/view?usp=drivesdk

You’re Still You