Who Am I

A movie once told the story of how a man who completely lost his memory following a car accident.  Nobody recognized him in the nearby town; he looked at his reflection in a shop window, and yet he could not recognize himself. Even the ticket in his pocket did not give him a clue.  His confusion deepened when he found the inscription on the back of his watch said “with love.”  Lost in a daze, he put his head in his hands and asked: “Who am I?”

This is a snippet of our human condition.  “Who am I?” is a question that has indeed torn humanity since the time of exile from Eden.   Self-reflection on one’s identity in the world has occupied the minds of philosophers and thinkers throughout the ages.  While the quest for individual identity was explored by the Greek philosopher Socrates and the modern western existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, Chinese traditions tend to focus on broader issues of social ethics and harmonious relationships with Heaven or the greater Dao.  Chinese collective culture, in general, tends to ask: “Who are we?”

The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) once asked the question “Who Am I?” in the prison cell of a Nazi Concentration Camp.  He concluded, “O God, I am thine!”—the epiphany of his search for identity was to totally belong to God.¹ The apostle Paul exhorted the Church in Corinth: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor 5:17).  This new creation is rooted in Christ who shares all our human frailty and suffering, yet was raised to the highest place, so we may receive the indwelling Spirit as an eternal inheritance.  Like the Trinity, we are made for relationships and conversations as imago Dei.  We will never be a complete “I” without the Other—the Divine, other people, and the creation, as in Mark Burber’s I-Thou relational paradigm.  What if our false selves, defined by families of origin, social status, and worldly accomplishment, are mere shadows and façades?  What if our yearning for something more will never be settled till it meets the One who is after our heart of hearts?What if we are God’s beloved and always belong to the One who created and has been recreating us in Christ?  What if a close-knit Christian community embraces and lives out its mysterious and holy nature, knowing to whom it truly belongs?

The poem “Who am I?” is an invitation for anyone on a journey searching for their individual and collective identity.  We, who are like the man in the movie suffering from amnesia, may start to find our way back.  Augustine once prayed: “Let me know Thee, Oh God, let me know myself, that is all!”  The genuine self-interrogation of one’s identity may lead to the awareness and receptivity of the one who gives life and breathes over the beloved.  It is indeed in the convergence and union with the holy God that we are found.

“Who Am I?”²

©Xiaoli Yang. All rights reserved.

1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Who Am I?: Poetic Insights on Personal Identity (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Pub, 2005)
2. Xiaoli Yang, “Who Am I?”, Mission Studies 39, no. 3 (2022)

Xiaoli Yang

  Rev. Dr. Xiaoli Yang is an Australian Chinese theologian, pastor, poet, and spiritual director. She is currently serving Australian Association of Mission Studies and on the editorial board of Australian Journal of Mission Studies.    View Full Bio

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