From the Editors November 3, 2014 Issue

Knowing who we are

David C. Kennedy

The question of identity reaches into every aspect of our lives. It shapes how we think of ourselves and how we relate to others. It underlies the course of our career, even our course in life. It plays itself out, often unnoticed, in the condition of our health—either good health or bad.

For many of us, deciding who we are starts with the body and then expands to include what we call our personality—character traits, disposition, fears we hang on to, impulses we go along with, and so on.

What all of this material self-identification is missing, however, is the right starting point, which always must be God, our creator, our Father-Mother—the source of our true and only individuality. The Apostle John saw this true starting point. He wrote: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God” (I John 3:1).

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