I Am Because You Are

There is, I am told, an old African proverb that says: "I am because you are. If you are not, I cannot be." Several times during our High Adventure Camp I felt the truth of that proverb.

I have discovered that I am profoundly affected (and perhaps to some degree even effected) by those around me. The essential characteristics of others with whom I am interacting— which in our Clifton StrengthFinder lingo we've been calling strengths — draw out secondary characteristics in me. When I am around people who are hard-wired empathics, for example, I am much more conscious of how others may be feeling, or am more apt to consider that carefully in how I behave or interact. I like myself better when I am around such people.

Conversely, when I engage at length with hard-wired competitives — particularly those who seem to adhere to the motto "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing!" — I become easily drawn into a desire to gain advantage over the other by pushing the other down. The end result of such interaction is, regretably, that I like myself less when I enter into those behaviours.

By myself, I am incomplete. By myself, I am less than fully human. For me to be all that God has created and intended me to be, I need community; I need the rest of the body. No matter how much my natural introverted personality craves extended solitude, and is often drained by people, I cannot be me alone.

I suppose this ought not to be surprising. If man is made in the image of a God who exists eternally in intimate community, could she ever be truly herself alone outside of human (and divine?) community?