A few years ago I traveled back to my hometown in The Tri-Cities, Washington to bury my father’s ashes.  I wasn’t feeling like my best self.  Suddenly, with my Mom gone as well, and being an only child, I felt like the “last survivor.”  I questioned my life, my worth, my “self” – I was depressed.

While there, I got to visit my former High School, thanks to some gracious teachers, I got a tour; walking around familiar halls and passages, remembering things I had long forgotten.  It was a new school when I attended, it didn’t look so new now.

I walked around feeling old, which didn’t help with the current opinion of myself at the time, getting a little more depressed with each corner, looking at the children who wandered the halls and wondering if I ever looked that young.

I turned into the familiar MUSIC BUILDING and walked into a new hall that led to the familiar CHORUS ROOM, where I spent many hours.  A girl I assumed was a student, was looking at a painting on the large wall.  I turned also to look and to my amazement, it was a song I wrote, “SCARLET & GOLD”.  

Because the school had been new when I attended, there were some things the building and school didn’t have when we started attending.  Each graduating class would “gift” something back to the school – and at that time, the gifts were things not included in the original building budget.  My class, the class of ’76 gave an electronic scoreboard for the gym.  The next class commissioned me, already a songwriter, for an ALMA MATER, which the school didn’t have yet.  There on the wall was my song.

I started feeling a little better about myself as I looked at the wall painting of my lyrics and melody.

The girl turned to me and said (since she saw I was a visitorl) “This is our ALMA MATER.”
“Thanks, yes, I saw that,” I replied, “but there’s a mistake in that part of the lyric.” I said as I pointed down to the lower part of the painting where the error was.
“Really?” she asked (with a look that said, “Who do YOU think you are?”) “How do YOU know?”
I said, indicating the name on my VISITOR BADGE and my name on the wall,
“I wrote it.”

Her expression was what I would have if I had suddenly run into Abraham Lincoln; pleasantly shocked, but mostly because I thought he had been dead for quite some time.

Then she whispered reverentially, “Really?”
“Sure enough.” I said.
“Well I suppose you ought to know.  Wow, we sing this all the time and would’ve never thought I would have met, or talked to, the writer!  That makes a lot of difference; knowing the writer and not just the song.”  

Then, she said, “I’m still not sure that’s a mistake.” Pointing to the lyric we were looking at.  She then smiled, gave a little wave, and books in arms, moved on.

What?!

She was standing beside the writer, who pointed out the lyric and the mistake…THE WRITER, ME…who remembers hand-writing the song, who has sung the song, who KNOWS (if anyone would) what is wrong and what is right with the song.  I wasn’t at all angry, just stunned.  At that moment, she felt her OPINION carried the same weight as my “TRUTH”. 

I’ve told this story before, in a BLOG, but the last time I told it I left out her final comment because it wasn’t part of the lesson…however, recently this memory has returned to me WITH her “last line”.  I’m seeing, and reading, SO MANY people who also believe their OPINIONS (non-credentialed) carry as much weight as easily verified facts and truth.  

It’s like saying, “Since I disagree with this it must not be true.”

I suppose this is where our current time and place has gotten to…but God has been dealing with this for all time.  I thank Him for HIS patience and mercy.  A recent conversation with yet another person voicing a “non-credentialed” opinion about a “credentialed truth” made the frustration-futile-anger level in me to rise…and then I heard the quiet, calm, voice of the Spirit.

The Spirit of Jesus took me back to the very beginning of today’s story – the part where my OPINION of myself was low.  That whole time, when I was low, THE SPIRIT was trying to break through.  In every corner of that trip the SPIRIT was showing me how loved I was by my parents, friends, family, and community – showing me that my life mattered…I, of course, didn’t want to listen…my opinion of myself was standing in the front. 

Then THE SPIRIT said, “My FACT carries more weight than YOUR OPINION…especially when it comes to your view of yourself.” 

I find when it comes to self-knowledge, self-identity, and self-esteem, humans sabotage their lives.  We forget that GOD creates by “fiat” – He speaks it, and it is made. He speaks and IT IS so.  He speaks and when He says, “You are MY child.  You are loved.  You are worth dying for.  You are the greatest creation I have made.”  those words aren’t His opinions, they are fact.  They are truth.  And our OPINIONS do not carry the same weight against His facts, and His TRUTH.

It’s not an easy lesson to learn, especially during these times, we are tested every moment of every day.  But if no one says it to you today…listen to the SPIRIT of TRUTH:
You are God’s child.
You are loved.
You are worth dying for.
You are the greatest creation He has made.”

AND, your non-credentialed opinion doesn’t have the weight to stand against His facts & truth.

Mrs. G. has become one of my favorite teachers, in memory.  I was seven or eight-years-old when I stepped into her class, at Jason Lee Elementary,  she stole my “creative” heart.  Everything we did that year woke my inner artist with the methods she used to teach.  We wrote and bound books (I have two of them) to read to the First Graders, helping them to read.  We made pottery, made butter, made bread, made bricks, learned how to weave, all this to while learning the early history of the Americas, and we wrote, produced, and performed plays that illustrated everything from math, to spelling, to English.

She was, and that class was, very formative for me…obviously building and discovering what are now so many parts of my life. 

One day we took a “field trip”, one of my first.  We traveled as a class to the “big kids school” (the Junior High School) to see a play.  This was one of my first, up close.  It was probably only as good as it could be; costumes and set were probably rudimentary…but for me, at that moment in time, it was an incredible and magic moment.  After the show I went backstage and stood craning my neck to see all the backstage magic: sets, lights, props.  One of the actors came up to me, a girl who played a princess (as I recall), and I asked her a million questions about the stage-craft…really more interested in the everything BEFORE the acting, at that point.  Somewhere during the conversation she asked if I had come with a class of other kids.  It was only then that I realized I had wandered off by myself backstage.  I immediately panicked, knowing they would leave without me; the long walk back to school, the scolding from Mrs. G and worse, from my parents…or the ultimate…I’d be sent to the Principal!

I turned to quickly escape and there was Mrs G.  She looked upset, but bent down and gave me a hug.  She said she was worried and left the other kids on the bus to go ahead as she searched for me through the school, she took me back to the school in her car.

We spoke of it again, many, many years later when she and her husband ended up attending the church my parents attended.  I was an adult, working as an actor, songwriter, church musician…pretty much all skills that were based in what I learned in her class, when I visited my folks and their congregation.  I was grown, married, with kids by this point.  It was a very happy reunion; she hadn’t changed a bit in my eyes. She had saved a couple of my books and gave them to me, and I asked her if she remembered that day at the Junior High Play.  She said she did, that I was her “little lost sheep”.  I then begged her to admit that I was her favorite pupil in all these years.

She said, “You are ALL my favorites…but at that time, YOU were the one in trouble, so I focused on you.”

“What man among you, who has 100 sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it?   When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders,   and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’   I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don’t need repentance.”
LUKE 15:4-7

 Jesus’ shepherd loved ALL the sheep, but at that place and time there was ONE who needed his attention.

Mrs. G loved ALL her students, but at that place and time the person who needed her undivided attention was me.  My life mattered to her, like the sheep matters to the shepherd.  And that has made a great difference in my life.

It was March of 1983.  I was living in Seattle, working as an actor and in my church when a golden opportunity arrived by boat…Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were visiting!  Now you know how much I love the Queen, so you know I had to go and catch a glimpse.  One of the places they were visiting was THE SEATTLE CENTER; a cultural park in the center of town that was, originally, home to the WORLD’S FAIR of ’62.  Since I performed and rehearsed there, I knew all the best, secret, parking spaces…so I made my way (with thousands of others) to that space, early on a cold day.

I ended up right on the rope along a trail that had been marked.  I was thrilled to think I’d be seeing them that closely as they passed by.

I’d been there maybe 30 minutes, when someone gave me a tap on the shoulder.  I turned around.  Standing there were two impressive-looking gentlemen in “official dark suits and coats”, smiling, and with genuine British authority and accent, asked if I would come with them.  The one speaking presented his I.D. and badge, and as he did I could see that he was, discretely, “packing”.  He took me in a friendly but firm manner into the building while his buddy stood where I had been standing.

As I tried to question him about what was going on he quietly said, as we moved swiftly, he would take my back so I wouldn’t lose my place, if I could (once inside) show him some identification and answer a few questions.  Baffled, I followed him…optimistically hoping he was clearing me for a special “tea” with the Queen for random people plucked from the crowd.

Nope.

Once inside I presented my drivers license and business card, he made a call and seemed satisfied.  He apologized profusely…”doing his job” and all that, and then said, ”…but you must admit, the way you look might draw suspicion.” 

What?!

Then I saw myself, through HIS eyes: lots of black, curly (yes, curly) hair and big mustache (some of you have seen the photos from then, if not, think of John Oates or Tony Orlando), mirrored sun glasses (it was the early 80s), black leather jacket, jeans, and boots…my normal “uniform.” But of course, to “007” I looked like a threat.  Hmmm.  He took me back to my place, to the bewilderment of the ever-swelling crowd, while his buddy (“006?”) stood discretely somewhere behind me…keeping an eye?  And then, just a few moments later, they arrived.

Standing to my left was a little girl holding a bouquet of daffodils…she caught Her Majesty’s eye and here came BOTH the Queen and the Prince over to me!  I could sense the tension of “006” behind me as the Queen stooped to speak to the little girl and accept the daffs.

Again, I’m not sure what I expected, but the person who stood right in front of me was small, no…tiny.  If I had run into her any other place or time I might not have ever realized she was a Monarch.  The Duke, on the other hand, was tall, gigantic, blonde, and every inch royalty…in any other place or time one wouldn’t have had to ask if he was royal.

Then it happened.  As I was soaking it all in, Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, looked directly at me (“006: is having kittens at this point) and said something like, “Remarkable crowd, eh?” (or something close) and stuck out his hand.  In a moment that seemed to last forever I took it, shook it, and then they both moved on.  (When I called my mother and told her about the incident, she asked me not to wash my hand until she could touch it.)

What a moment in time.  What a lesson in identity. Who are we, anyway?

British Secret Security saw me as someone I wasn’t.
The Queen & Duke were not what I expected.
My perceptions, and everyone elses, were false, or incomplete.  

Are we who SOMEONE ELSE thinks we are?  Are we defined by our TITLES, our jobs, spouses, wealth?  Or, are we defined by place and time?

I believe we are ALL and NONE of that.  ALL, because everything that is temporary in us “tempers” us.  Who I was then, defined by age, place, and clothes, is not at all who I am now.  Their Majesties were only a year into being grandparents…look at them now.  But our “temporal” identities change, and that’s probably why we are always so insecure about “who we are”.  That’s probably why the more insecure we are the more we look to others to define us, not always getting what we want.  That’s why many posts on social media are really just Insecurities looking for affirmation. 

But we are also NONE of those perceptions. The only identity that doesn’t change is our permanent one, our immortal one: the identity first given to us by our Creator. 

 Gods love FOR us, and knowledge OF us precedes our very creation.  We were in his eye before we were in his hands. We are, and always will be, completely enough for God, perfect enough to be called His child, good enough to inherit a lifetime with Him as an heir, a Consort, a friend. HIS feeling for us don’t change. 

I know this much about INVESTMENTS: I need to invest in something sure, and lasting: I should invest in who GOD thinks I am.  What HE thinks and how HE feels about me takes precedent over what anyone else thinks…and My experience with Him is based on my choice to accept He is who He claims to be, and to live as I was designed to live; following His lead. 

God walks beside us as we pass through each moment in our lives.  He watches as we gain jobs and lose jobs, marry, have children, lose family, lose youth…and all the while He says, “…these are phases, these are “coverings”, these are temporary…the REAL you is being polished, trimmed, strengthened THROUGH those things, but they don’t define you.”

That moment in time, when I stood beside the Queen of England, her Prince Consort, a small girl with flowers, and a nervous British Secret Serviceman, was fleeting…but also eternal.  Time stopped when we all stood there, none of us were the people everyone around us perceived.  We were all MORE and LESS: it was simply a new grandmother chatting up a little girl with flowers, while her husband shook my hand and made small talk.

That scene may be repeated with the same cast one day in The Age-To-Come.  In that place, all the temporary labels will be gone.  All the perceptions others have of us will have faded to memory, and we will just be the children of God, in His garden, enjoying each other’s company and the company of our Father…from whom all blessing flow, from whom our true identity comes.