When we meet someone for the first time, we usually tell them our name and a little something about our identity. Like, “Hi, I’m Tom. I’m retired.” Or “I’m Dan and I’m president of Forest Park Bank,” or “I’m Clark, a person with a disability,” or “My name is Mike and I’m a veteran.”
On a first date we usually want to go a little deeper in order to see if there is any kind of future with this person. Physical attraction to some degree is necessary to invest in a relationship with this person, we tell ourselves, but not sufficient. We want to learn something about “who they are,” about their identity. Do you see yourself as an athlete, a theater-goer, a technology buff, a tree hugger? And most important are you a Cubs or Sox fan?
As important as the last question may seem, all of the above questions probe penultimate aspects of one’s identity. A short definition of penultimate is “next to last.” In terms of identity it means “a value or principle which is important to us but not at the core of who we are.”
Theologian Paul Tillich called the foundational aspects of who we are our “ultimate concerns.” Some folks would capitalize both those words.
For drug addicts their ultimate concern is the next fix.
A narcissist’s ultimate concern is him/herself.
So one question this column is asking is “What/who is my ultimate concern? What/who is at the core of who I am? Is there anything/anyone I’m willing to die for?”
Questions that can be difficult to answer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who wrote a poem while waiting to be executed in a Nazi prison, a poem in which he confessed that he still had a hard time answering the question, “Who am I?” Even though he knew what/whom he was willing to die for. He wrote,
Who am I? They often tell me
I step from my cell
calm and cheerful and poised,
like a squire from his manor.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bear days of calamity
serenely, smiling and proud,
like one accustomed to victory …
Am I really what others say of me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless, yearning, sick, like a caged bird,
struggling for life breath, as if I were being strangled,
starving for colors, for flowers, for birdsong,
thirsting for kind words, human closeness,
shaking with rage at power lust and pettiest insult …
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest me; O God, I am thine …
Bonhoeffer’s poem affirms that penultimate needs are important. Jesus, after all, taught his disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
But more foundational are the ultimate concerns, the ones that determine whether our “home” stands or is washed away when the once-in-a-generation floods threaten where we live, who we think we are.
Now, at the national level, we seem to be having an identity crisis. But at the local level, we seem to know who we are. For example, if friends from another community ask you what the heart and soul of Forest Park is — i.e. our identity — what words would you use?
With fear and trembling, I’m going to take a shot at speaking for most of us with the following. Forest Park’s identity is:
Blue collar with white stripes
Highly educated without being pretentious
Cooperatively competitive in business
Liberal residents paired with conservative clergy
Racial, economic, cultural diversity
Housing ranging from $83,000 to $600,000
2,660 residents 65 and older, 2,337 residents 18 and under
A median household income of around $77,200 (U.S. median $89,000)
We embody DEI.
But what statistics don’t reveal is that residents on opposite sides of the cultural/economic/political continuum make this village work by keeping our eyes focused on a common sense of what is most important, on our ultimate concerns.
The late Art Jones perhaps best embodied the Forest Park identity. He had a white-collar job but when he took off his suit coat you would notice “lots of blue stripes” in his shirt. He made a six-figure salary, but he and his wife chose to live in a relatively modest home in our village with “small town charm.” He invested his time, money and self in a risky attempt to transform Madison Street.
The results? Go to a Casket Race or the Garage Galleries; attend a church service or enjoy the Chamber of Commerce annual meeting, held in McAdams’ “barn”; watch a No Gloves National game; eat breakfast on a Saturday morning at Louie’s or Charlie’s or the MP Kitchen. And then go to a gourmet with dinner at Piacere Mio.
Our identity, and ultimate concern, is a vibrant, viable village.
Check out Tom’s ongoing substack posts about the fiction life of Pastor Walter Mitty at https://tomholmes10.substack.com