What's your bio?
The 'bio'.
No longer simply a sentence or two reserved for commencement speakers and writers. This is now common place on all social media platforms, company and church websites, or any other medium that we attempt to bring some sort of personal edge or connection to.
Much like the often default 'what do you do?' question that bubbles out of us as we attempt to get to know someone. We quickly find ways to define ourselves often not by who we are but what we do.
Look no further than the 'about' section on this site:
Beard, Bikes, Bible.
The first comes and goes, the second is his healthy unhealthy obsession, and the third is what he’s committed his life to.
Adam’s passion and belief in the power of young people has led him to work with high school and emerging adults for the past decade and is currently serving as the Youth Minister at Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids, MI. He is nearing the completion of his Master of Divinity at Western Theological Seminary, is a frequent contributor on Restoration Living and Thirty Seconds or Less, and has written for Sparkhouse.
All of the bios I have floating around reflect this in some form or fashion. In many ways, the way I describe myself to the world can be summarized in four words: minister, student, contributor, and writer.
All are things I do or have done.
But is that really all I am?
Are the only things of value and worth telling others is this idea of myself that I hope to project to the world?
Where do I believe my value comes from? Well, I think I've just exposed myself.
So now, let's say it the ugly way: I want to be known. I want to matter. And I think you do too. We have chosen to accept the narrative in our lives and the lives of others that: only what occurs externally ultimately matter. We can easily look down on individuals and groups who seem to take more than they give, we value being self-made, we want to be seen as some thing so we buy certain products to put forth an image that is actually just allowing us to hide the emptiness we feel deep within.
While there is value in what we do, we must reclaim our response to who we are.
From the very beginning, we have been given value and meaning for simply existing.
However one will try to read the first verses of the Bible, it is there that we find that out of nothing - God created everything and called it good. The Divine then took from what He already had made, sturred it together, then breathing the Spirit into a clump of mud and humanity was miraculously brought forth into the world! Before there was anything our ancestors could do or create (because God had already done all of that) God called them not just good but very good.
And the Divine continues to speak that amazing word to us. Softly whispering it to us, in the face off all the ways we mess up and dirty ourselves and the rest of creation, 'You are very good'. It's humbling, it's hard to accept because if it is is true - it is saying in one of the most beautiful things we could imagine, that: we are known. we matter and it has nothing to do with anything we have done.I have a friend who once on their Twitter bio simply listed 'human'. It made me laugh every time I saw it, which I believe was the point. Maybe we take ourselves a bit to serious. Maybe we need to remember that all we have to offer each other is ourselves - and that is enough. Maybe we need to remember that our worth does not come from what we achieve. Maybe we need to remember that we are known, loved, and believed in from the very beginning of our days. Maybe we need to start to reclaiming this and reminding others.
Maybe we can start to rethinking by revisiting how we choose describe ourselves.