is what you do who you are?

RISE Talk

19 November 2020

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Is what you do who you are?  The answer is yes and no.  The answer is firstly yes, but lastly and more importantly, no.

What you do changes you.  It matters a lot.  Moral theology takes our actions quite seriously.  We form character by action, by practicing virtues and vices.  Our freedom has real and enormous consequences, for ourselves and others.  For people of faith, these consequences resonate into eternity.  You don't believe me?  Read the parable of the talents.

Our freedom to choose is what makes us most in the image of God.  What we do gives us a chance to grow in His likeness, or not to.  Our freedom is so real that it not only forms our character, it sets our destiny.  So yes, of course we are what we do.  Actions speak loudly!  Walking the walk matters.

Yet in a more important sense, we are not what we do.   For our freedom to do does not exist in a vacuum.  The ability to do is not fundamental to being a person.  I didn't start my life doing anything.  I won't end my life doing anything.  Personhood is founded instead on who loves us.  Who we are is who loves us.  I became someone when I was known, loved, desired and protected.  I will cease to be someone when these things stop.  So at a deeper level, you are not what you do.  The ability to do comes later and ends sooner.  You are instead who loves you.

It's like the difference between particle and quantum physics, perhaps.  There are rules for particle physics that are true and explain a lot.  Yet these same rules that access truth break down at the level of quantum physics.  In the same way, you are what you do at a macro level, but not at a deeper level of existence.  The laws of morality are born from deeper laws that access metaphysical truth.

So we are what we do, but we are also and moreso who loves us into existence and personhood.  Which is to say we are ultimately God's, who is love, goodness, relationship and reality all together.  Who are you?  You are God's.  

I don't mean to evade the question.  I like evading questions, but not this one.  Avoiding this question is to miss out on life.

I think the question is meant to access how we get love!  Do you get love by doing?  If we take for granted that love is what we all want, and to be someone is to be capable of giving and receiving love, then we must answer how one gets love.  Do you get love by doing?

We all know fundamentally this is a lie. We are not what we do.  Love is not earned, it is given.  Yet even knowing this, few of us have trusted it.  The lie that we are what we do is all around us.  It might be more contagious than COVID-19.  I dare say it infects everyone, and the symptoms in each of us are enormous!

I bought into this lie that I am what I do pretty on in life, as you probably did.  I learned that a sure way to get love is by performance.  You do get love based on what you do, and how well you do it.  You earn love.  It's how you become someone.  It's not how we start and end life, but it's how most of us operate in the middle.  As far as I could tell, the harder I worked, the more I was recognized.  So I began doing early in life what anyone would do.

I took the ball and ran with it.  People who know me well would say I haven't stopped running.  I've never stopped running from who I really am. I'm as close as you can get to a workaholic version of Forrest gump.  I'm so deep into it that I don't know if I can or will ever change.  I really don't.

I can't remember the last time I wasn't trying to do more than anyone else.  It's what I know.  It's what I trust.  It's what I think I can control.  It's how I think I can fill this thirst for infinite, eternal love, a hole that can only be filled by God Himself.  Yet I've substituted God with the idol of hard work.  So badly do I want love that I would kill myself working for it if I could.  I bet a lot of you tonight know exactly what I'm talking about.

When I was your age, at 19, I latched onto a hero who could do it all. That hero is St. John Paul II.  To say I had a huge crush on John Paul would be a huge understatement.  The guy had it all.  He had move-star good looks and a sharp mind.  He loved the outdoors and sports!  He had a compassionate touch, a joyful spirit, a courageous will, an irresistible voice and delivery, and so much m ore.  This is his biography of 800 pages!  The dude knew how to do things, heroic incredible things!

He had the idea of huge outdoor Masses for youth.  He was told he was too old and that the youth would ignore him.  He did it anyway.  I went to one of these in Denver when I was a sophomore at KU.  The dude was bigger than life.  He was bigger than Jesus Christ!  Jesus' largest crowd was only 5,000!  John Paul gathered almost a million.  A few years later I followed my crush to a Mass in Paris, where there were almost 3 million.  This was the beginning of the end for me.  This was the way to do more than anyone else.  I had to be like him, somehow, someway.  To hell with being loved for who I was.  I had to be him!

The plan started to work immediately!  When I told people I was going to be a priest, something so few people could do, my popularity skyrocketed!  I was a resounding victory in the sibling rivalry.  for 25 years, I had tried to do more than my older brother Chad, my archnemesis.  He was bigger, stronger and better than me at most things.  To beat him I had to get superpowers.  The priesthood, as you might know, has them!  Priests can forgive sins and make Jesus present on an altar!  Priests are known for what they can do!

Take that, Chad!  I was on m y way.  It was easy to get drunk on the power.  As a priest, I could finally do more than anyone.  I could earn love by saying Mass, hearing confessions and being a Father to everybody.  It was amazing how well it worked!

Until the day it stopped working.  Lies eventually are exposed.  If our identity is wrapped up in what we do, that well will always run dry.  It's not fundamentally who we are.  It can't replace the truth of who we are.  My plan worked until the day I had to admit it wasn't working, that it had never really worked.  I don't know exactly when I lost my way, or how.  I just know I did.  It will happen to all of us who are caught up in the lie.

I didn't want to get out of bed.  Even though I had more to do than ever, and so many things that only I could do, I didn't want to do anything.  I didn't know who I was, because we are not fundamentally what we do.  Instead, I resented having to do anything.  I was lost.  My foolproof plan, the only thing I knew and what I had bet everything on, was torn to shreds.  I didn't feel loved by God or anyone.

It's all because I fell hook, line and sinker for the lie that we are what we do.  It's now how we start or end life.  It's not fundamentally true in the middle either.  Our desire and ability to do things changes.  What doesn't change?  Our personhood is grounded not in what we do, but in being known, loved, desired and protected.  We are who loves us.  It doesn't take a genius to see it. It takes a saint to believe it, trust it and stick with it.

Why did I believe the lie?  Why does any of us believe it?  It's because we love control.  We think we can control how hard we work.  We can control judging ourselves by how hard we work.  We can control loving ourselves based on our performance.  We can control what we think we deserve.  What can we not control?  We can't control how much someone loves us.  For love is not earned.  It is given.

In so many ways, earning love is still all I know, and all I trust.  I still want to be the Pope.  I still want to be him, not Fr. Mitchel.  I want to be a lot smarter, better looking, talented and fit than I am.  I want to be noticed and for people to hang on my every word.  I want to remember everyone's name and have unlimited time and compassion for anyone who needs me.  I want to be everything to everyone.  I want an 800 page biography.

Yet how do you get this?  I should have paid more attention to my hero.  He didn't do so much by wanting to earn love.  He did so much by not being afraid to be loved, and to receive it as a grace.  Who loves you John Paul?  Mary loves me.  Who are you John Paul?  I am totally hers.  What must you do John Paul?  I must be totally hers.

It's how Jesus called me to be a priest.  He didn't call me because He needed me to do anything, much less be like John Paul.  He called me because He wanted to love me more.  The thought of it scares me.  It's frightening to let someone love you in this way.  Yet the alternative is to live a lie that always backfires.  No matter how hard I try, I can't turn love into something it's not.  It's not earned.  It's a gift.  For you are not what you do.  You are who loves you.

If you learn to trust that holy place, you can do almost anything.  It's how you do a lot.  It's how you get a million people.  It's how you get an 800 page biography.  It's how you become alive.  It's so simple, yet so scary.  You need to let God love you.  It's who you are.

If you do that one thing, there will be no limit to what you can do.