When I was a kid, every afternoon after school, I would turn on the black and white television and watch cartoons. Popeye the Sailor Man was always the lead cartoon. I know, I am old and the cartoon is corny, but go with me on this one. If you ate your spinach, you could be “strong to the
Popeye also had a saying, “I yam what I yam and dats all what I yam.” I think without us knowing it, Popeye was doing more than being a spokesman for spinach. I believe that buried in the cartoon was a statement on self-esteem and ego. I mean, think about it, I yam what I yam is recognizing that we don’t have to play games, we can just be who we are. The next phrase, and dats all what I am, sums up all we will ever need to know – we are complete as we are.
I have spent years telling clients and students, know who you are and whose you are. Popeye most certainly knew who he was and that being himself was good enough. I wish I could say that starting in my childhood I knew who I was and I bet, if you are honest with yourself, on any given day you might not be so sure of who you are. It’s okay, we are all but humans, trying to find our way.
Jesus was such a person, the perfect one to embody both who he was and Whose he was and he came to us all to show us who we are and whose we are. We are the embodiment of the Living Christ, we are heirs with Him. When we say, I yam what I yam….we are making a statement that we are the Divine Creation in whom God is pleased. Start there, I am pleasing to God as I am? How can that be? I have not followed the rules and I have not always been a good person. God, are you sure about this?
The answer to the above question is that God has always been absolutely sure that Divine love comes with no strings attached from the moment of the first creation, when God said, “It is good.” It is hard for us to get our mind around our inheritance and that there are no strings attached to it, we did not earn it, it is just about who we are in God.
Oh, and that last part, “and
TMM