One of the thoughts that I always reflect upon during the lame duck week of the year is a four word sentence that I once heard a minister say almost twenty years ago:  You are the gift. It changed my life.  It began my journey in search of my authentic self.  There are few words that are more true and yet so many of us spend life times never bringing forth our special gift, our own light for the world.  Each of us is like a snowflake–alike and yet unique in our individual shape.  Yet so many of us spend our entire lives trying to look like the rest–and the world is not better off for it.

Being brought up in Texas, I was raised to be polite, and being a female this lesson was doubled down on.  Frankly, I don’t think there are any people on the planet who are more polite than Texans and that may be part of our problem.  That may be why we have 19 coal plants in our state and why we don’t do anything when our governor and his rich pals decided to turn our state into a nuclear waste dump or when over-worked human beings at Pantex in March of 2005 almost blew our state and several with it off the map.  We are just too damn polite to call the people in Austin the bastards that they really are and replace them and tell them “hell no.”

As I’ve grown older, I’ve gained the courage to allow my raw anger and indignation to show. Even though I’ve been on my own personal quest for my authentic self for almost 20 years now, I’m still not certain what my special gift is.  Today–especially following about three days of some extremely angry and indignant posts, I’m wondering if perhaps my raw anger and indignation are not my special gifts.

The legendary Greek hero, Odysseus (called Ulysses in Latin)  ruled the island kingdom of Ithaka.  After the Trojan War, Odysseus roamed the world for 10 years in finding his way back to Ithaka.  Odysseus had many big adventures and each of these adventures changed him. He freed his men from the pleasure-giving drugs of the Lotus-Eaters, rescued them from the cannibalism of the Cyclopes and the enchantments of Circe. He even braved the terrors of the underworld.   In our modern English language today his name has evolved to Odyssey–which means a long journey with lots of twists and turns that can, like Odysseus’s journey, be frightening, exhaustive and exhilarating, but above all transforming.  Perhaps it is all these adventures of life that we have that peel away our outer layers and ultimately reveal our authentic selves and our gift(s).

In modern times Abraham Maslow is perhaps the one person who has devoted the most ink in advocating human beings to nurture the authentic self” –that core part of each human being that he believed that we all strive toward. The finding of our gift Maslow called “self-actualization”.

Are we there yet, as a nation and as a people? No, I think not. To borrow from Robert Frost on the matter:

“. . .The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. . .”

But if you may allow me a bit of optimism, I am filled with the hope that we may yet reach Ithaka.

Proclaim the Queen!

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