Article May 30, 2005 Issue

In relation to God

By Channing Walker

BOB DYLAN, in his autobiography, catalogs some of the titles that adoring fans pinned on him during his rise to rock superstardom. He hints at their comic absurdity, but notes the undeserved burden those labels sometimes conferred: "Legend, Icon, Enigma (Buddha in European Clothes was my favorite)—stuff like that; but that was all right. These titles were placid and harmless, threadbare, easy to get around with them. Prophet, Messiah, Savior—those are tough ones" (Chronicles, Simon a Schuster, 2004, p. 124). The rest of us generally get saddled with tags far more mundane: surfer, stockbroker, retiree, Latino—stuff like that. While these labels are neither as absurd nor burdensome, they are handy for pollsters, telemarketers, and others intent on fitting the public into precut profiles. Of course, they don't come close to fully identifying a person. For that, perhaps we need a whole new perspective, maybe even a new language.

How else could you summarize someone, other than just by the tasks he or she performs? How else could you go beyond the roles people play in a family or society, to the essence of who they are individually? Maybe the only way is to see others as the Higher Power sees them. To know them as the Divine knows them. To rise mentally to an altitude of thought with a view to the facts about an individual's spiritual nature.

If that's a tall order, at least it nudges one away from superficial and often misleading labels. Hopefully, it prods one toward a more spiritual perspective of others, and of oneself. Consider Christ Jesus' parable about a prodigal son and his brother. Could it be read as two journeys to self-awareness? As a discovery by each brother of his true identity? If you know the parable, you can jump to the next paragraph. For others, here's a quick recap. "A certain man had two sons," it begins. The younger of them bargained for his inheritance, left with it on a high-flying spree, burned through his resources, and crashed. He attached himself to a farmer, accepted the lowest sort of work. Then, "he came to himself"—resolved to rejoin his father, not as a son but hopefully as a hired servant. The father, on the other hand, celebrated the reunion not as a return but as a resurrection. The older brother, faithfully laboring the whole time, grew indignant, incensed over the celebration. The father salved his wounded ego with the assurance, "Son, thou art with me, and all that I have is thine" (see Luke 15:11–32).