Still Becoming
The Journey of Becoming our True Self
Some poems take a very long time to write. “Still Becoming” is one of those poems.
This is a poem about me.
This is a poem about you.
This is a poem about my father.
My father was truly a “self made” man. He dropped out of high school in the 10th grade to work on the factory floor making socks. My father, along with his brothers formed a band and travelled extensively throughout the south playing gospel and country music. They became so successful in music and entertainment that they became among the first television programs in the industry. I grew up watching my father on the TV while I was having breakfast. After a long run, my father dropped out of the band became an advertising executive forming his own business. When he was 70, he got his real estate license. When he was 74, he got his Broker’s license. When he was 80 he got his contractor’s license and began building houses.
I am a witness to his becoming.
Becoming is in my DNA. Becoming is in each soul to become their true selves.
This is a poem about the one sentence he said to me the night I was ordained into the ministry in 1980. In the protestant tradition, the ordination is a service of the laying on of hands on the head or shoulders of the one being ordained—commissioned, set apart and consecrated into their calling. I knelt that night in a church in Charlotte, NC and people came by, one at a time; placed their hands on my head and whispered something into my hear. In my tradition, only men and only men who were themselves “ordained” could participate. But this poem is not about that service.
Perhaps you too, can relate to some of the things in our past that needed to change; needed to evolve as we gained more clarity about ourselves and about the truth we discovered along the journey of life.
This is a poem about becoming my true self.
As you read this poem, you’ll now have my background and the deep memory that surfaced this past week as I was clearing out the growth in our yard here in western North Carolina. All the shrubs; all the bushes; all the trees seemed to have grown way too much in our absence on our pilgrimage. A deep prunning was needed. Too much unnecessary stuff—needed trimming back. What my father said to me “oddly” came up as I was cutting back the shrubs—clearing out so much unnecessary new branches.
This is what we do when we become our true selves. We grow. We try own clothes and beliefs until they fit. Then over time, we out grow certain things and discard them.
Becoming real requires many revisions for most of us.
This is certainly true of me.
It is certainly true of you as well.
Every blessing as you, too, become your true self!
Stephen
In my new book of poems, you’ll find poems where I give words to much of my becoming journey. In fact, the entire first section of “Greening” contains some of my poems about pruning. Each poem a portal into the process of becoming—the journey of greening in life. Here’s the link to order the book of poems:
Click here: TO ORDER GREENING
