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There has been just one place and space I felt no need to add my “identity”.

The home where I live, the place I work, the clothes I wear, the interests I follow, the beliefs I carry, the way and words I speak, the things I see and register … All of those are my “identity”.  And I have sought to imprint my identity on the spaces external to me – my home, my workplace, my relationships … Or else I am lost as a person, I lose my identity, my self-esteem and self-worth – I become submerged in the identity of other’s imprinted spaces.

There has been just one place and space I felt no need to add my “identity”.

I think perhaps I needed that validation of who I am. I needed to see evidence that I mattered. That who I am “matters”. Which makes me sound like some weird paranoid insecure oddball.  Except the older I get the less that matters AND the more I see so many needing that external validation.

Other than small children before they too are taught.

Or else why do we need to differentiate ourselves so much?  Why do we need to belong to a group or space that is “like us”?  Why is our need to both stand-out AND fit-in such a driver?  Why do we need that “validation” so much?  Like this “Advent Validation” …

The Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah – Matthew 1:1-17

I think I finally understand why these long “genealogies” in the bible have always bored me rigid.

I don’t care.

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I don’t need that “validation” shoved in my face.  A “validation” someone else assumes will convince me of something they think I should be convinced of.

More than not caring – I don’t even believe it is relevant.  I think that manipulating a “family tree” in the bible (a document with “factual evidence issues”) is like manipulating statistics: “What do you want the answer to be?”

There has been just one place and space I felt no need to add my “identity”.

It was when I spent three months with my father who was dying.  Three months in his home.  Three months when everything in his home remained in the same place and space.  The routine, the physical things, the stuff in cupboards and drawers, the “stuff” that makes a home a “home”.  Physically he was able to do less and less as those three months ticked down.  But had he wanted to – he could have found anything at all – because everything was in the same place it had always been – his place and space not mine.  I remember that being a conscious decision even before we knew it would be only three months – before we knew he was dying.  I think you deserve that small consideration always.

I am.

Wherever I happen to be and whoever I happen to be with – I am always me.  Unless I “need” to change to be a different me.  And then the conflict is not “external” … it is internal validation I seek because my conflict is with me and me alone.

Road rage.  Anger.  Being offended.  Being disrespected.  Being ignored.  Not being listened to.  Not being appreciated.  Things not being as we “like them to be”.

My conflict is with me and me alone.

I found that I don’t need external imprinting of my identity.  I found that I did not need conditional love validating my self-worth love.  I found that unconditional love is stronger than anything I have ever known before or since.

Unconditional love is “I Am”.

And if I am unconditional love … I will know when you need external validation … I will know when you don’t “validate” me.  And what I do with that information is my choice.  I always have (internal) choices in everything always.

Which is why this biblical genealogy on the “journey of preparation” (as Advent is known) is not relevant to who I am.

I am “is”.  And if I Am “isn’t” –

Then evidence from a document with “evidence issues” – for me – misses the point completely.

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