Last fall I attended my high school class’s 50th reunion. A lot of people remembered me–not because I was all that special, but because I was at the reunion with my identical twin sister, Karen. Everyone remembered two of us, and, just like the good old days, nobody could tell us apart. “Which one are you?” people kept asking.
Sometimes it’s hard for us to remember who we are. I was amazed at all the memories that bubbled up at the reunion—of choir and Russian class, dear friends and fierce competitors. I remembered things about my young life that I hadn’t thought of for decades: the urgency we felt to work for racial justice and an end to war, our commitment to LGBTQ welcome, my feminist identity, my church that celebrated the first Earth Day and how excited we were to save the planet. Who am I now? Am I who, at my core, I had hoped I would be? Am I who God wanted me to be?
One thing I’ll never forget is a story retired Presbyterian pastor Jim Lowry tells. Each Saturday evening in his youth, just before he left the house to pick up his date, his father would look him squarely in the eye and say to him, “Child, remember who you are.” Jim grew up in the heart of the South at a time when the notion of who you were meant something—not just about money, education, or race but about character. What you did, how you behaved, reflected on you and on your family name. Jim had a responsibility to bear the Lowry name with honor.
