Identity and integrity.

Somewhere within my files is the “National Identity Card” which was issued by His Majesty’s Government in the U.K. soon after my birth in May 1944.  The card is printed on thick stock paper. 

The details of my name and date of birth are handwritten, and entered in pen and ink. (Who remembers pen and ink?).  There is no photograph – leading me to believe that these National Identity Cards were not terribly useful!

World War II in Europe ended about 13 months after my birth, and I have never once been asked to produce or show the card.  I possess the card thanks to my Mum who “saved” such items.

Of course the card, in and of itself, says little about my identity.

 I am more than my name and date of birth.

For instance:

1.       I attended the gay pride event yesterday in Sarasota.

2.       I was at Church this morning at St. Boniface on Siesta Key.

3.       This afternoon saw me at the Sarasota Opera House for Rossini’s   opera “La Generentola” (Cinderella).

I ask myself two questions.

1. First:  Do these three disparate events reveal any clues as to my “identity”?

2. Second:  Am I the same person whether at gay pride, church, or opera; or is my identity defined by where I am, and by what I am doing?

These important questions have to do with integrity, much more than with identity.  

My identity and integrity are not measurable when I am “out and about”. 

They are revealed only when I am in the secrecy and privacy of my own home and thoughts. 

That is when my actions and thoughts are only scrutable to God and to me.