Here I am

Yesterday my teen-aged daughter participated in a Taekwon Do tournament, and my husband was there for part of it. When he was telling me about it afterwards, he said, “It was great – I was giving her advice, and she was actually hearing it.” He told me that the advice he was giving had nothing to do with the placement of hands and feet. Instead, it had to do with presence – feeling the purpose of each thing she was doing, feeling it deep in her belly, breathing. He told her to walk into the ring with a presence that would command the judges to look at her – one that said, even before the first move of her pattern, you’re looking at the winner. It wasn’t a matter of psyche-out or bravado. It wasn’t a matter of positioning herself as better than the other competitors. It was simply a matter of being fully there, of standing behind and within herself, of being a fair representation of everything that she is. Not one of many waiting to be judged, but one being of integrity, whole within herself.

I found this to be very good advice. I took it in, took it for myself, and considered how consonant it is with everything I’m learning about being. It doesn’t make sense that presence and poise be the exclusive purview of celebrities and a small percentage of people born to perform. If I am, in fact, the image and likeness of God, good, it doesn’t make sense that I would be missing the capacity to represent myself, to stand in myself, and to stand up with poise and confidence. These aren’t surface qualities. They’re not about polishing my image or developing a persona, however much popular culture would say they are. They aren’t contrary to humility, but are in fact an expression of it, an acknowledgment that God is the creator, that God does a good job, and that it’s not our place to say otherwise.

There’s a song I’ve sung a few times in other Christian churches. It says, Here I am, Lord – send me. It is in this willingness to be sent that I also find the presence and poise that will allow me to do the job required. It is interesting to consider that we are sent each day – that our being is the evidence of God’s being, and we don’t have any other purpose. So it is right to feel competent in every pursuit in which we find ourselves. It’s right to expect our actions to be effective.