Labels That Once Defined Me

I recently ran into a former student at the grocery store. We hadn’t seen each other in more than twenty years. When we finally recognized one another, she turned to her daughter and said, “This is Reverend Auman.”

Reverend Auman? I haven’t been called that in years. It felt unsettling—like a voice echoing from a previous life.

We all create identities, and then we cling to them for the sense of safety they seem to provide. Eventually, though, we loosen our grip. We let them fall away. New identities rise up in their place—sometimes shaped by who we are, sometimes by who we no longer wish to be. I was that, but now I am not that.

The mind, of course, delights in this sorting game. It can play it endlessly: I was that, now I am this. They’re on that side. She’s one of those. He votes with them. I used to believe this, now I believe that. What do you believe? Around and around it goes.

Over the years, I’ve shed many of the labels that once defined me: Reverend, personal coach, spiritual advisor, chaplain, visual artist. That old life has given way to a new one. And if I’m honest, most people don’t care much about those distinctions anyway.

What I was then, what I was in that grocery store moment, what I am now—it’s all me. Every version, every story, every square inch of these sixty-seven years belongs.

I suspect the deeper wisdom within us doesn’t worry about sorting all that out. It doesn’t keep score of whether we’re this or that. It simply holds it all in a kind of spacious embrace.

Of course, there are times when regret stirs. When my friend Larry recalls our college days, my stomach tightens. When I think of poor decisions I made as a father or husband, the ache still surfaces. Some wounds never quite close. There are days when I find myself at odds with my own story, not sure what to do with certain chapters.

But even those difficult pieces belong. The awkward memories, the scars, the patterns of thought I’ve left behind—they’re still mine. I am all of it. Every part folded into this one singular, beautiful, imperfect life.

Mary Oliver once wrote: “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.”

And perhaps that is the heart of it. We do not need to perfect our story. We only need to live it—honestly, humbly, and as fully as we can.