Old Selves

I begin to worry that I have found all the resonances these readings have with my current life.

And then a friend poses the theory that I'm in conversation/conflict/relationship with my former self.  That I am struggling not so much with an outer culture or inner insatisfaction but a discomfort with the distinction between who I've been and who I am now.

Like Jesus's hometown fails to reconcile Jesus the Son of God with Jesus the Son of Mary and presumably Joseph.  The brother, the carpenter, the boy lost in the temple with the prophet, the healer, the man clearing the temple of money changers.

I wonder if Jesus ever felt the same. To some degree, we all understand our own journey from who we were at 20 or 25 to who we are at 31 or whatever age.  But I wonder if the dissonance between to two rankled the way it sometimes does with me.

But perhaps the very answer is in this story as well.  The fact that we dissent at the idea of the carpenter, the brother/cousin, the son, the little boy we all knew and the Prophet, the Son of God, the Messiah being the same person...perhaps that's human and predictable.

But perhaps we CAN realize that it's false and limiting and not our problem.  That the Son of God being the Son of Man doesn't actually have to be a problem.  That the prophet can be the hometown boy.  That the Messiah can be the boy from Nazareth.