Who Are You? Trail-Names and Identity
One of the scenes from the Disney telling of Alice and Wonderland that sticks in my mind is Alice’s conversation with the caterpillar, specifically the question that the caterpillar asks, “Who are you?” I don’t know if it was because of the way that the caterpillar asks the question or that the letters themselves hang in the atmosphere being shaped by the hookah exhalations that further emphasized the weight of the wondering. That part of Alice in Wonderland sticks and stays with me. I don’t really remember the tea party, I remember a little bit of the mushroom eating and a croquet game with threats of decapitation, but I really remember the question. “Who are you?”
Maybe it was because of the brilliance of the voice artist (the late Richard Hayden) and the animators that caused the scene to stay in my mind, but I wonder if it is also because of the weight of the question as well. “Who are you?” This is a question that lingers and remains with me especially in my time of transition.
It is not a new question. When I graduated from seminary I wrestled with this question in relation to the ministry. I saw myself as someone who was called to walk alongside the faithful as a pastor, but I was not sure what that looked like. I felt the pull and the demands of the institutional church (as much as Baptists can have an institutional church), the expectations of church members and other pastors for me to be a certain way, act a certain way, dress a certain way, and I was in fear of losing a sense of who I was, whoever that might be. My first tattoo, “λογοσ” was a response to such tension and pull, a reminder to me that the “word” is what I committed myself to, was what I was following, and not the “church” with all of its trappings and expectations.
But in time the edges wear down, the rebelliousness and counter-cultural push diminishes as children become a part of the story, as houses are purchased and mortgages are owed and “adulting” becomes more than just a verb we use to sound cute but a reality of life. This is something that so many of us fall into, an acquiescence to the norms for the sake of comfort, of responsibilities, and “growing up.” In time, after a couple of decades, when someone would ask, “who are you,” I would say that I am a pastor and had finally gotten into a place where I felt comfortable saying those words and living with the projected expectations that came along with such a title. The tattoo is still there, the essence of my allegiance to “λογοσ” lingers, but it is faded and dim. This is middle-age.
I don’t know why I could not settle with the fading of my idealistic and somewhat naïve youthful ambitions and dreams. I do not know why I could not just continue with the norm that seems to be a part of growing up, but see my previous post about those struggles in this transition. All I know is that my claimed identity made me groan and shrink, and I did not like who I had become. Or maybe it is better to say that I was not excited about where I was headed. I have no regrets for who I was, but I could not see myself in that trajectory for ten or twenty years more.
An ongoing theme in these posts is the experience of the wilderness, real and metaphorical. One of the things that I have been coming to realize it that for me, the wilderness is not a destination, but a place of transition. As I recently preached at a church in Nantucket, the wilderness is a liminal space for me. Maybe it is in the wilderness that I am aware that I am in-between where I was and where I hope to be. It is a place where I feel “seen” but it is also a place that is uncomfortable for me. I know we say it is the journey and not the destination, but when the journey contains the unknown, then it is scary. Again, I have written about this already. And today I am led to consider the idea and issue of identity when considering my presence in the wilderness. Part of my wilderness is not knowing who I am. Ask me, “who are you,” and I will tell you that I do not know. I do not know who I am.
There is a practice among thru-hikers to adopt trail-names. These are often fun names that speak to the hiker’s experience or relationship with the trail or the wilderness in general. Or they are just nick-names that a hiker has acquired. I have met hikers with names like, “Sloth, 3-Bears, Mighty Wind, Chilkoot, Breezy, Magic, and Bubbles.” I’m not going to get into a full sociological analysis of trail-names for this post, but I love the tradition. On the trips that I lead I invite the group to give someone a trail-name and for the individual to pick their own trail name. It is a way to speak to the person’s relationship with the trail and the group and the overall experience. It is saying, “in these past number of days, in this wilderness, this is who you have been for us and this is who I see myself as.” It is an answer to the question, “who are you,” that is offered by the individual and the community. I think there is something of a gift to give people the opportunity to have an identity that is separate from job, family, and any other expectations. It is a way of articulating the experience of the wilderness.
Almost 25 years ago, when I did a 2-month section hike of the Appalachian Trail my trail-name was “Ichthus.” It was a pretentious way of saying that I was a Christian, but not a run-of-the-mill Christian but instead one who elevated thinking and scholarship as a part of my faith. I was an annoying seminarian who was itching to show off how much I knew at every opportunity. I still am annoying, and I still am pretentious, but hopefully not as much.
More recently, my trail name has been “Sabbath.” It is a name that for me speaks to what I am looking for and what I sometimes find in the wilderness. Not rest. For me, rest is an odd notion to bring into the wilderness. I have not found the “peaceable kingdom” that Isaiah prophesies about where predator and prey lie together and do not eat each other. I was sitting at a glacial lake in California having a “peaceful” lunch and was watching the fish leap out of the water, eating insects. It may have been peaceful and restful for me, and maybe for the fish, but not so much for the insect. Nature does what nature does. I do not find “rest” in the wilderness.
I understand that some people try to rest on the Sabbath (be that Saturday or Sunday), and that rest looks different for different people. For me, in the wilderness, I am pushing myself, trying to walk the next mile, climb one more mountain. Yes, it is restful for me to hike and camp, but not in a way that many consider. It is not a time of being idle, but rather of being very active. I enjoy the physical challenge, the ways that I can push myself, and feeling exhausted at the end of the day.
The name, Sabbath, speaks to balance. Abraham Joshua Heschel writes about balance brilliantly in his beautiful tome The Sabbath which I strongly recommend. In the wilderness I find balance. It is a balance along a sense of being able to find rest and a sense of still feeling productive in that rest. It is a rest that is fulfilling not a rest that is empty. Sabbath is finding that balance around connecting with God and feeling like those connections can feel forced in the institutional church. In the wilderness I am Sabbath, not because I have a sense of balance, but because there I feel like I am getting close to finding it. It is my trail-name not only because I feel drawn closer to balance, but also because that is what I strive to offer to people when I bring them into the wilderness. I am not trying to offer the majestic views or the amazing sunsets (although that is a part of what I hope to find), but a sense of balance even if it is only for a moment.
But when I am not in the wilderness, when I am in a coffee shop writing, when I am doing the domestic duties that I am told I am supposed to do, when I am guest preaching at a church, and am asked who I am, my answer is, “I don’t know.” Maybe it is the distractions of the world, maybe it is the lures of screens, the visions of what I think I am supposed to be, the desires to have more and more. I hear of families going on vacations and wonder if I am supposed to be doing the same for my family. I see different things that people have, the stuff that they surround themselves with and wonder if my family is supposed to have things and stuff as well. And with the changes that I have made, purchasing things and stuff and going on vacations feels distant and beyond realistic.
Or maybe, in the front-country I am brought face to face with what I have been, with where I have come from and I face an existential chasm of unknowing and I have a difficult time saying who I am. Maybe it is just middle-age.
Who am I? I don’t know. As has been the case for all aspects of my time of transition, this has not been a comfortable place for me to be.
Recently, with this question of identity I was given a gift. I was at my brother’s house after a day of hiking in New Hampshire and was sharing with him my struggles of identity. I told him how I was unsure about calling myself a pastor or what that might mean, or who I was and he looked at me and said, “I have always just seen you as Jonathan.” There was no question, no hesitation, just a declaration of who I am. For my brother, I am Jonathan. I didn’t have time to ask him what that meant.
Isn’t it interesting that this is a name without prefixes or suffixes? This is a name that does not have any descriptors or apologies. It is just my name. It could be unpacked; I could look at the Hebrew and try to exegete what it means. But that was not what my brother was getting at. I was just the person he had grown up with, the brother he had fought with and played with. I was Jonathan.
I wonder if that is the name I can fully embrace in this current wilderness of transition. I wonder what it would mean for my trail-name to become my given name. I want my name to speak to my relationship with the wilderness, including the wilderness that I am finding myself in now. But my name has already been given, and I have been invited to embrace it.