Topic : Identity

Inge Kraus doesn’t know who she really is; she only knows that people call her by that name. She was just four years old in April, 1945, when Russian troops attacked Konigsberg, the capital of what was then East Prussia. Inge remembers a strong man lifting her onto a wagon filled with people as Soviet artillery rained down upon the city she knew as home. She survived but was separated from her family and placed in an orphanage in Germany. Inge recently attended a gathering of war exiles from her city, tearfully hoping that someone might recognize her—but to no avail.

Today in the Word, November 8, 1997

Setting out from Hamburg, Germany, one day to give a concert in London, violinist Fritz Kreisler had an hour before his boat sailed. He wandered into a music shop, where the proprietor asked if he might look at the violin Kreisler was carrying. He then vanished and returned with two policemen, one of whom told the violinist, “You are under arrest.”

“What for?” asked Kreisler.

“You have Fritz Kreisler’s violin.”

“I am Fritz Kreisler,” protested the musician.

“You can’t put that on us. Come along to the station.,”

As Kreisler’s boat was sailing soon, there was no time for prolonged explanations. Kreisler asked for his violin and played a piece he was well known for. “Now are you satisfied? he asked. The policemen let the musician go because he had done what only Fritz Kreisler could do.

Today in the Word, July 1995, p. 14

“I’m Wayne Black.” The words were tattooed across the forehead of Wayne Black, a suspected thief in Lincoln, England. When confronted by police, Black insisted he wasn’t Wayne Black.

From The People, a London Newspaper, quoted in Parade, December 31, 1995, p. 11

The 200-year-old church was being readied for an anniversary celebration when calamity struck: the bell ringer was called out of town. The sexton immediately advertised for another.

When the replacement arrived, the sexton took him to the steps leading to the bell tower, some 150 feet above them. Round and round they went, huffing and puffing all the way. Just as they reached the landing, the bell ringer tripped and fell face-first into the biggest bell of all. Bo-o-o-o-ong!

Dazed by the blow, the bell ringer stumbled backward onto the landing. The railing broke loose and he fell to the ground. Miraculously, he was unhurt—only stunned—but the sexton thought it best to call an ambulance.

“Do you know this man’s name?” asked the doctor when he arrived.

“No,” the sexton replied, “but his face sure rings a bell.”

Jerry Zenk, quoted by Alex Thien in Milwaukee Sentinel

• I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific. - Lily TOmlin

The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, by Jane Wagner.

In The Mask Behind the Mask, biographer Peter Evans says that actor Peter Sellers played so many roles he sometimes was not sure of his own identity. Approached once by a fan who asked him, “Are you Peter Sellers?” Sellers answered briskly, “Not today,” and walked on.

Today in the Word, July 24, 1993

Suffering from terminal spinal cancer at the age or 47, former North Carolina State basketball coach Jim Valvano spoke with a reporter earlier this year. He looked back on his life and told a story about himself as a 23-year-old coach of a small college team. “Why is winning so important to you?” the players asked Valvano.

“Because the final score defines you,” he said, “You lose, ergo, you’re a loser. You win, ergo, you’re a winner.”

“No,” the players insisted. “Participation is what matters. Trying your best, regardless of whether you win or lose—that’s what defines you.”

It took 24 more years of living. It took the coach bolting up from the mattress three or four times a night with his T-shirt soaked with sweat and his teeth rattling from the fever chill of chemotherapy and the terror of seeing himself die repeatedly in his dreams. It took all that for him to say it: “Those kids were right. It’s effort, not result. It’s trying. God, what a great human being I could have been if I’d had this awareness back then.”

Gary Smith in Sports Illustrated, quoted in Reader’s Digest

While walking through the forest one day, a man found a young eagle who had fallen out of his nest. He took it home and put it in his barnyard where it soon learned to eat and behave like the chickens. One day a naturalist passed by the farm and asked why it was that the king of all birds should be confined to live in the barnyard with the chickens. The farmer replied that since he had given it chicken feed and trained it to be a chicken, it had never learned to fly. Since it now behaved as the chickens, it was no longer an eagle.

“Still it has the heart of an eagle,” replied the naturalist, “and can surely be taught to fly.” He lifted the eagle toward the sky and said, “You belong to the sky and not to the earth. Stretch forth your wings and fly.”

The eagle, however, was confused. He did not know who he was, and seeing the chickens eating their food, he jumped down to be with them again.

The naturalist took the bird to the roof of the house and urged him again, saying, “You are an eagle. Stretch forth your wings and fly.”

But the eagle was afraid of his unknown self and world and jumped down once more for the chicken food. Finally the naturalist took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high mountain. There he held the king of the birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, “You are an eagle. You belong to the sky. Stretch forth your wings and fly.”

The eagle looked around, back towards the barnyard and up to the sky. Then the naturalist lifted him straight towards the sun and it happened that the eagle began to tremble. Slowly he stretched his wings, and with a triumphant cry, soared away into the heavens.

It may be that the eagle still remembers the chickens with nostalgia. It may even be that he occasionally revisits the barnyard. But as far as anyone knows, he has never returned to lead the life of a chicken.

From Theology News and Notes, October, 1976, quoted in Multnomah Message, Spring, 1993, p. 1

The renowned artist Paul Gustave Dore (1821-1883) lost his passport while traveling in Europe. When he came to a border crossing, he explained his predicament to one of the guards. Giving his name to the official, Dore hoped he would be recognized and allowed to pass. The guard, however, said that many people attempted to cross the border by claiming to be persons they were not.

Dore insisted that he was the man he claimed to be. “All right,” said the official, “we’ll give you a test, and if you pass it we’ll allow you to go through.” Handing him a pencil and a sheet of paper, he told the artist to sketch several peasants standing nearby. Dore did it so quickly and skillfully that the guard was convinced he was indeed who he claimed to be. His work confirmed his word!

Our Daily Bread, January 6, 1993

Alfred the Great was the ninth-century king who saved England from conquest by the Danish. At one point during his wars with the Danes, Alfred was forced to seek refuge in the hut of a poor Saxon family. Not recognizing her visitor, the woman of the house said she had to leave and asked Alfred to watch some cakes she was baking. But the king had other things on his mind and did not notice that the cakes were burning. Upon her return, the lady unknowingly gave her sovereign a hearty scolding!

Today in the Word, April 9, 1992

• Leadership, IV, 3, p. 94

In “A Portrait of America,” NEWSWEEK (l/17/83) poked some fun at the national census:

‘Give your name and age and business. Is your husband working'
Do you rent or own the building? Did you ever milk a cow'
This is strictly confidential—are you underweight or fat'
Does your husband have a bunion? Are his arches good or flat'
Did you vote for Herbert Hoover? Are you dry or are you wet'
Did you ever use tobacco? Did you ever place a bet?. . .
Are you saving any money? Do you ever pay your debt'
Are your husband’s old red flannels in the wash or on him yet'

“The Census Taker,” Scott Wiseman 1940

“Uncle Sam’s armies of statisticians don’t really ask questions about the cleanliness of the old man’s flannels,” writes NEWSWEEK, “But they do ask about the state of our arches (2.6 million are flat or fallen)… They can expound on life and its quality and on death and its causes. They can analyze sex and birth, divorce and income, crime and eating habits.… As a result, America knows more about itself than ever before.”

That may be true—yet people are still confused about who they are and the roles they are to fill. Could it be that in the thousands of questions, the census takers have overlooked the most important ones'

Source unknown

In his sermon, “We All Need Roots,” William P. Tuck tells of a man who stepped onto the platform at an American Legion Convention. As he looked over the large crowd, he asked, “Can anybody tell me who I am?” He had lost his memory, with no record of his past or his identity. His desperate appeal was: “Does anybody know who I am?”

William P. Tuck

Christian Herter was running hard for reelection as Governor of Massachusetts, and one day he arrived late at a barbecue. He’d had no breakfast or lunch, and he was famished. As he moved down the serving line, he held out his plate and received one piece of chicken. The governor said to the serving lady, “Excuse me, do you mind if I get another piece of chicken. I’m very hungry.” “Sorry, I’m supposed to give one piece to each person,” the woman replied. “But I’m starved,” he repeated, and again she said: “Only one to a customer.”

Herter was normally a modest man, but he decided this was the time to use the weight of his office, and said, “Madam, do you know who I am? I am the governor of this state.” “Do you know who I am?” she answered. “I’m the lady in charge of chicken. Move along, mister.”

Preaching, March-April, 1986

The dilemma of an unclear sense of personal identity was illustrated by an incident in the life of the famous German philosopher Schleiermacher, who did much to shape the progress of modern thought. The story is told that one day as an old man he was sitting alone on a bench in a city park. A policeman thinking that he was a vagrant came over and shook him and asked, “Who are you?” Schleiermacher replied sadly, “I wish I knew.”

Source unknown