BRIAN: You’re all individuals!

                  FOLLOWERS: Yes, we’re all individuals!

BRIAN: You’re all different!

FOLLOWERS: Yes, we are all different!

DENNIS: I’m not.

ARTHUR: Shhhhh.

FOLLOWERS: Shhh. Shhhhh. Shhhh.

from Monty Python’s Life of Brian

 

It is true to say that for me sanctity consists in being myself and for you sanctity consists of being yourself and that, in the last analysis, your sanctity will never be mine and mine will never be yours, except in the communism of charity and grace. For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.

 

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”

Martha Graham in conversation with Agnes de Mille, 1943, recounted in Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham, 1991.

 

We will never find our vocations by trying to figure out whether we are better or worse than others. We are good enough to do what we are called to do. Be yourself!

Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

 

 

Only I can know who I truly am

Only I have all the relevant information

Only I can say what it would mean for me to live in authenticity

But God knows too.

I am called to be the person God created me to be.

And it is when I am most truly myself

that he is most surely working through me.

 

“As poignant as it is funny and satirical.” Graham Chapman as Brian Cohen in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979.