“Self-portraiture provides a certain notion of myself.”
-Esmé Weijun Wang, author, designer, and person with schizoaffective disorder

When’s the last time you drew yourself?
When’s the last time you wrote about yourself?
When’s the last time you snapped a carefully-curated selfie designed to exhibit some specific part of your multifaceted personality?

I don’t know if this experience is universal, but for most children I’ve worked with over the years, the first words they learn to write are their own names. The first pictures they tend to draw are their own faces.

Later on, in art classes, drawing self-portraits is a rite of passage. All the greats have done it, and every student learns to do it as well. Some artists even become known for it, like Rembrandt’s famously meticulous oil self-portraits, Van Gogh’s swirling emotional depictions of his deteriorating mental state, or M.C. Escher’s rounded reflections smuggled into his impossible architecture.

But why do we spend so much time depicting ourselves? Well, for one, the subject matter is readily available. A self-portrait requires only one model after all. I think there’s more to it though.

The world around us changes constantly, as do the worlds within us. As we grow, it helps to stop and take stock of the things we value most about ourselves, the things we want the world to see. If I were to put forward just one picture, one paragraph, one tweet— what would I want to tell the world about myself? What would I want to affirm or deny within myself? Put more broadly, who am I?

For an application, I recently had to write a “testimony” (Christianese for a personal essay describing one’s own spiritual history and sense of vocation), and I found the experience therapeutic. This written self-portrait helped me think about which parts of myself I wanted to emphasize. What of myself did I want to share? What corners did I want to round off a little? Which parts of my own story did I find the most compelling? Of which parts was I ashamed?

I wonder too if you’ve had a similar experience.
What parts of yourself do you feel compelled to share with the world?
And how does sharing about yourself help you understand yourself more fully?

In this spirit of exploring and revealing the self, I want to share with y’all that it’s been a really tough year and a half. I’ve just come to the end of a second hospital chaplain residency, so I’ve been caring for patients, families, and medical team members at the height of the COVID pandemic in NE Florida. There’s a lot I’m unpacking emotionally, and I’m taking some time to rest, read, write, and (most importantly) spend a lot of time with my wife and my daughter. Candidly, I don’t really know yet how all that will affect this blog, but it’s something I wanted to share with you.

Thank you, as always, for your support and encouragement.