Our True and Full Self

What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are . . . because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. - Frederick Buechner

I deeply appreciate Buechner's thoughts on this idea of our "true and full self" - as a person who has spent her life being told that she is "too loud" or "too assertive" or "too bossy", I have struggled with who I am as opposed to who I "should" be.  I have been told that my personality is acceptable in a man but not a woman; if I would just do what I was told, life would be so much easier for me; women want to lead because of Eve's disobedience in the garden and I should try harder to be submissive and fight this obvious manifestation of sin in my life to please God.  If you're laughing incredulously at these statements, believe me - they were said in all seriousness and "concern" for my spiritual well-being.

I am thankful for Kayla who was on my ministry placement council while I was in seminary.  As I related some of these comments that I had heard throughout my life, she leaned forward and said in a quiet yet powerful voice, "Don't let other people 'should' on you."  I took her words to heart and have tried not to look back.

But it's hard.  It's hard when you're told over and over again that you're too loud or abrasive.  When you're told you need to choose between your vocation and your avocation because it will ultimately compromise your pastoral authority.  I've spent the last few months doing a self-check because when you hear the same thing over and over, it's hard not to think that the only common denominator in all the equations is me/my personality.  Am I mulishly clinging to a false sense of self and grieving God's Spirit?  Am I wrong to want to be completely who I am?

Ugh.  Existentialist drama.  Or, as one of my friends has bemusedly said to me on several occasions, "You think too much."  I wonder if my atheist friends have these same kinds of thoughts.  Or if my fellow clergywomen from the North or West bump into these kinds of things.  Is it just a Southern phenomenon?  Or is it something that only happens in religious circles?  Help me out, folks.  Am I alone in this?