3

What Defines You?

I was coming home from Wichita late one morning and stopped for a red light at the intersection of Kellogg and Andover roads. A woman in her midthirties rolled up beside me in a silver-colored car.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that she was talking on a cell phone. Her wrist jewelry was beautiful; her dark hair looked great; her outfit was “power red.” Clearly a working professional, she was the picture of poise and competence. I thought, She’s on her way somewhere to do something really important.

The light changed, and she headed on straight as I turned. For some reason, I kept thinking about her as I drove south the seven miles to my home. I wondered if she was happy. I wondered if she had kids somewhere, in school or in day care. I wondered if the morning routine at her house had been smooth or harried.

Then an odd thought crossed my mind. What if her cell phone were taken away?

She wouldn’t be able to communicate on the road. Her ability to “network” would be severely hampered.

What if she didn’t have that nice car?

She would have a much harder time keeping her appointments. In fact, she might find it impossible to do her present work and have to change jobs.

What if her wardrobe was old and plain, instead of up-to-date and fresh? She wouldn’t make such a positive impression on clients.

I wasn’t meaning to criticize her in any way. In one sense, I actually admired her. I was just musing about the things that support us in our choices. Who would she be without them?

Who are any of us down deep inside, minus the accessories of modern life? If some force vacuumed away our many possessions, what would be left?

*   *

One tribe in the Philippines has a unique way of defining people. The first time Martin flew into their village, the resident missionary began to introduce him to the people. He knew Martin’s name, obviously, but in keeping with the local culture, he said in front of the crowd, “Now, you have a son, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Martin replied.

“What is his name?”

“My oldest son is Jeffrey.”

“Ah yes. So you are Inay-Jeffrey,” he pronounced. The name meant “father of Jeffrey,” except that Filipinos have a way of turning the ff sound into p, so it came out more like “Inay-Jappery.”

That became his official name whenever he flew to this village. Nobody ever called him Martin or Mr. Burnham. His whole identity was based upon his firstborn.

The Muslims who held us captive, we learned, had a similar obsession with male offspring. Musab, a gruff leader within the Abu Sayyaf, especially wanted to sire as many sons as possible. Not to have a son was considered a disgrace.

Solaiman, the captor who related most directly to us in the early months because of his good English, was always bothered by the fact that he had no son. He thus could not properly be called Abu Solaiman, which made him inferior to the others.

Readers from other cultures will no doubt find this strange, even illogical. But is it any different from our penchant for defining ourselves by our wealth, our neighborhood, our zip code, our gold (if not platinum) credit cards, our ethnic heritage, our church affiliation, or our possessions?

Less than one-fourth of the world’s population sleeps in a bed at night. Think about that for a minute. Three-fourths sleep in a hammock of some kind . . . or on a mat on a floor . . . or on a floor with no mat . . . or on the plain dirt.

Obviously, even fewer have a bedspread that matches the curtains, or a TV across the bedroom with a remote control to turn it on and off from where they recline. The belongings that matter to many of us are beyond comprehension to at least three billion other people on our planet.

I remember the day a packet arrived in the jungle camp that included a few snapshots for Martin and me. One showed my niece Sarah Tunis with a group of her college friends, who had gone on a retreat somewhere. They casually posed for the camera, and to us it was a warm reminder of “normal life” back in America.

The Abu Sayyaf, who censored everything we received, were fascinated with this photo. They eagerly passed it around, oohing and aahing as they chattered excitedly in their dialect. We wondered what was so intriguing about the picture.

Finally Martin went to inquire. In a few minutes he returned to where I was sitting on the ground.

“You’ll never guess,” he said.

“What?”

“They are amazed that everybody in the photo is wearing shoes.” Not a single young person in that faraway place (wherever it was) had to go barefoot. How astounding.

*   *

When life spins out of control for us, we find out who we truly are. We may have to redefine ourselves. We may have to face the fact that our belongings and assumptions have propped us up to a precarious degree. At such times life is a matter of “just us,” with no embellishments.

Jesus once reminded a man who wanted to follow him: “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but I, the Son of Man, have no home of my own, not even a place to lay my head” (Luke 9:58). The Lord didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by that; he wasn’t complaining in the least. He was just stating the truth. And for him, it had no bearing on his being the “Son of Man,” the chosen messenger of God almighty to the human race. He was who he was, bed or no bed, roof or no roof, money or no money.

After his resurrection, Jesus told his disciple Peter one morning beside the lakeshore, “The truth is, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked and go wherever you wanted to. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will direct you and take you where you don’t want to go” (John 21:18). No doubt that was unwelcome news for a strong, self-reliant fisherman. Peter would lose all independence, all control over his own mobility, wardrobe, and schedule.

In fact, church history tells us that Peter did indeed come to a restricted end under Roman arrest. He was crucified head downward, says tradition. Yet his place in our heart and memories is as exalted as ever.

What defines us in good times and bad is not what we have but who we are. Those who have been made sons and daughters of the King should not be measured by temporal accessories.

*   *

Earlier I noted how few people sleep in a bed at night. Just as surprising is this finding from Caslon Analytics, an Australian technology research firm: “Eighty percent of the world’s population has never made a telephone call.”[2] That was true of a lady who lived near us in the barrio at Aritao. She was perhaps in her seventies, with a sun- weathered face from long years of working in the rice fields.

She showed up at my door one day with her gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, her feet adorned with plastic tsinelas (flip-flops). “Could you help me call my daughter in Manila?” she asked shyly, explaining that an uncle had been taken to the hospital. She held out a scrap of paper with a phone number penciled on it.

“Of course I’ll help you,” I replied. “Come on inside.” I put my arm around her shoulder as I ushered her to the telephone in our kitchen.

I dialed the number for her and then extended the receiver in her direction.

A look of horror came over her face and she began backing up. You would have thought I was pushing a snake toward her. She obviously was scared to death of this black thing in my hand with its thin cord trailing downward.

That’s when it dawned on me that in all of her long life, she had never used a phone.

I didn’t know enough of her language to explain very much, but I encouraged her with smiles and hand motions to take the receiver and just listen. With great trepidation she put the black thing to her ear, and then a big smile broke across her face as a familiar voice came through the line.

There was no conventional “Oh, hello” or “How are you?” or “The reason I’m calling is . . .” She just immediately plunged into the news of what was occurring in her family. As soon as she had said her piece, she handed the phone back to me, thanked me profusely, and headed out the door.

I thought, You know, this little lady isn’t stupid. She has raised a family; she’s done what she could to make life enjoyable for the people she cares about. Just because she has never used a phone, or eaten in a restaurant, or checked into a hotel doesn’t mean she is less of a person. She is still a woman created in the image of God. And for that, she has worth.

The more we center ourselves on our true definition in God’s sight, not the possessions we have been able to gather or the esteem that others have given us, the more stable we will be in good times and bad. What other people think of us—and the artificial scales on which they rank us—is beside the point. They can make us neither better nor worse than we already are at our core.

If we accept this reality deep inside, we will be able to live far more peaceful lives.