Impersonating Ourselves

In All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Robert Fulghum tells of the day he was left with eighty boys and girls, all five years old. It was his job to keep these children occupied for one hour, a seemingly, impossible task. In desperation he remembered the game “Giants, Wizards, and Dwarfs,” which is similar to “Rock, Paper, Scissors”. It required each child, on command to pair with another child and act out being a giant, a wizard, or a dwarf. The giant beat the wizard, the wizard beat the dwarf, and the dwarf beat the giant. Fulghum let the children run around for a few minutes to wear them out, and then he yelled, “Giants, Wizards, and Dwarfs!!” Organized chaos ensued as the children each found a partner, began acting out either a giant, a wizard, or a dwarf, and then tried to decide who won.

While this noisy mayhem was in progress, Fulghum felt a tug on his pant leg. He looked down to see five-year-old girl with huge blue eyes looking up at him. “Yes,” he said.

The little girl replied, “Um, where do the mermaids go?” Even though Fulghum had made it clear there were only three categories in this game, the little girl was not deterred. She was saying in unmistakable term, “You may believe that only giants, wizards, and dwarfs exist, Mr. Fulghum, but you are wrong! I am a mermaid. Deal with it.”

I admire the little girl. She refused to accept that the categories given to choose from were the only ones. She understood her calling. She knew who she was.

Eugene Peterson pointed out once that most of us spend our lives “impersonating ourselves”. Children are who they are. It doesn’t take long before we have convinced them that they are what they wear, or what they do, or what they have, or what they look like. But if our children are lucky, we convince them early on to resist caricature or illusion.

from Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith

Michael Yaconelli

Love this story. I’ve been mulling over the phrase “impersonating ourselves”. It made sense to me as I’ve thought about some people I know who are truly, fully themselves–and the sparkle of their soul shines through. And others who look like they are trying, and self-conscious, and looking around being and doing what others expect, wanting to create an image that others will approve of, so when they go home and ask themselves, “What will others think?” they will have an answer that feels satisfactory. That’s painful to watch…and likely even more painful to be.

Live out your inner mermaid (or beaver, or butterfly, or cheetah, or housefly, or chipmunk or…) today!