Because I went down a Yannick Bisson rabbit hole a few months ago (because of becoming a Murdoch Mysteries fan as a result of a David Suchet/Hercule Poirot rabbit hole a year before that) I have been watching Sue Thomas, F. B. Eye. It's a decent show, even if it does often leave you conscious of the actors having learned their lines. (I'm a sucker for characters, who I start to care about like they are real people, and I like these characters.) This show has a theme song called Who I Am, by Jessica Andrews.
Now, to be honest, I usually skip through the theme song when I watch the show. There's one held note right towards the end that just rumbles my speakers the wrong way. Plus, the theme song often comes as much as five minutes into the opening of the show, and by that time I want to just get on with it.
But lately I've listened to it with more intentionality. I couldn't actually understand the lyrics at first, so I looked up the original, longer version on YouTube, with lyrics. I was struck in kind of a confusing way by this experience, and I've been just waiting for the chance to sit down and untangle my thoughts on this.
First, the song has a strong, driving, triumphant sounding female vocal, which is great. The song is all about personal identity, and the feeling the song gives is of confidence and certainty. It fits the show well, because the lead character is a deaf woman who has overcome a lot of social obstacles and who now works for the FBI. (There was a real Sue Thomas who did just this.)
So I was weirdly struck when I understood the words of the chorus:
I am Rosemary's granddaughterSo, let me unpack how this strikes me.
The spitting image of my father
And when the day is done, my Momma's still my biggest fan
Sometimes I'm clueless and I'm clumsy
But I've got friends that love me
And they know just where I stand
It's all a part of me
And that's who I am
First of all, I have to say positive things. We are communal beings, and our identity is absolutely revealed to us in relationship to other people. I don't know who I am without you. And our families are surely our most primal sense of belonging and identity, so there is beauty in this.
A bunch of other things occurred to me before that, though. First, I can't relate. At all. Singing a song of strength and connecting it to my family of origin and how we felt about each other is about as far from my experience as picking cotton in the Deep South or fishing in the Alaskan wild. But I can imagine it. And as I said, I can feel the value in it.
I'm also a genealogist and I follow genetic genealogy groups, and I hear people who face discoveries, for example, that the father they always knew turns out to not be their biological father. I see how this is absolutely devasting to a lot of people's sense of identity. Or the overwhelming emotions of adoptees who meet bio family for the first time.
I think of the compassion I've had to learn for myself. I became interested in genealogy at a young age in part, I think, to get below the immediate surface of the addiction and mental health issues of my parents, and their divorce, to see who else were my people.
But beyond on that, there was something even deeper that troubles me with this song.
It's such a shallow identity.
If my ultimate identity is just in my family and my friends, or even in my own strength and accomplishments -- all of this has a failing point, sooner or later. To pretend otherwise is just folly. It is true I am made for relationship, but my design is incredibly profound: I am made for relationship with God Himself. I have found that relationship in Jesus Christ, and so my life's bounty is to grow in my identity in Him. He is my strength, my love, my healing, my forgiveness, my joy, my purpose, my rest, my delight. That is really something to sing about.
I understand that some people may have actually found this depth of relationship with God precisely because of the faith and witness of their parents, and that makes sense to me. If this is the case, the failure with the song is a skipping over of the primary, to focus on beautiful secondary causes He has given into one's life. (In fact, the Sue Thomas character, and the real life Sue Thomas were both Christians and regularly pointed people to Him.) It's a country song. Maybe everyone who listens to country music presumes Jesus. I just don't think presuming Jesus is ever a good idea.
Identity is such a huge piece in Christian life. It isn't exactly a doctrine. It's really more of a component of what is properly called mystical theology, or lived Christian spirituality. American culture is in a state of crisis over personal identity, and Christians are not helping matters if we are not rooted in identity in Christ and if we don't know how to help others root in Him. I suppose I am keenly aware of this precisely because I'm currently in formation to do that as a spiritual director.
I could delight in thinking of myself as a daughter of St. Teresa and of St. John of the Cross. Carmelites do call them our Holy Parents. Clearly, obviously, we only love them because they teach us how to love Jesus and be loved by Him. I can actually see myself delighting in singing about being a Carmelite ("and that's who I am!"). I think it is just a crime against humanity, literally, to stop short of God and to place our identity in any created thing, even our most beloved loved ones, themselves.
And, here's the song as seen in the show:
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