Names do so much more than identify and differentiate. They provide a canvas on which to paint, exploring the what of each person, place, or thing. Richly expressive within their own borders, yet they have limits. Can a name contain more than the sum of its parts? I know what my legal forms of identification say, though the only thing they’ve ever consistently pointed out is how long I’ve been here. There is a me and a you that exists beyond our names, our bodies, our life spans. The ego has a tough time swallowing this. We all know that “Who am I?,” is more than a solitary question followed by a singular answer. The bigger question is “How much more am I?”
Ram Dass, the new age guru who brought a spiritual glimpse of the East to the West, said that for the ego, death is a stopping point. The ego sees death as suffering, but the soul sees death as the awakening of a new world, a new perception. The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, confessed that his ego was so big, that upon his death, it would be scratching at his coffin lid to go with him. The personas we’ve crafted are largely dressed in ego’s clothing. And just like with any fashion, they eventually go out of style. It’s the holding onto this clothing that brings much of our suffering.
On a walk between villages, the teacher asks his followers how people understood him. Then he turns the question on them.* Peter, the stridently bullish student, says that Jesus is “the Christ,” but then tries to spare him the suffering that Jesus described for himself. Quickly corrected, Peter’s ego was put in its proper place. “Lose your life, and you will gain it,” Jesus tells them.
Our solitary, small selves cannot contain and channel the great flow of the Spirit. That’s the calling of our soul, the timeless stitches in the collective garment, the Christ-consciousness, that which is beyond our egos which live only once. The scandal of the Gospel is that the incarnation is meant to be shared. Jesus came into this world to put on Christ’s clothes, yet “Christ” was never his last name. It’s a soul name that we all can wear. His sacred clothing was not just tailored for him, but for every… single… body.
–Jim Marsh, Jr., Bread of Life Church
