Home is where the heart is...

Just spent the weekend back in Liverpool (see post below). A combination of that and also doing the second of the 2 quizzes below last week to see which 'Christian tradition' I supposedly fit into the best has set me thinking a bit about the whole area of identity and belonging. Who are we? Where do we belong? Questions that I think bother people a lot more than we're generally willing to let on. A lot of people's lives can be spent trying to 'fit', seeking a sense of belonging, a sense of identity. I notice more and more that often we all like having a go at putting other people into certain 'boxes', and that we actually often want to be put into certain boxes ourselves. Whether the box we want to be put into matches what others think.....

All grossly generalised I know, but since moving to Cambridge this is all something that I am certainly noticing about myself and I'd like to think I'm not alone!! I see myself very much as a Liverpudlian; I've lived there for 21-22 of my 30 years; went through schools up to GCSE level there; moved out to Warrington for my A-levels at 16 - absolutely hated that couple of years, had my scouse friends calling me a 'woolley back' as I'd gone 1/2 way to Manchester, and the guys at my 6th form taking the mick out of my scouse accent and making quips about car wheels etc. (still get that now! I like it now though - funny how things change!); straight back to Liverpool for Uni at 18 and never left again (other than a couple of short voluntary periods in Ireland and India) until moving down here last year; pretty much all of my 'life defining' moments have happened there; I know the city like the back of my hand, have supported Liverpool FC slightly obsessively since a very early age, have really missed it since moving down here, am secretly very chuffed when people down here comment on my accent(!), and am really hoping God will lead us back there after finishing at Ridley. I feel that I can put a pretty good case forward for being a 'Liverpudlian'; if, as the saying goes, 'home is where the heart is' I definitely qualify!

Yet I know people who would laugh at the idea of me calling this blog 'scouseordinand', who would crack up with laughter if someone told them I had a scouse accent of any description etc. I wasn't actually born there, my accent isn't strong so I can't be a scouser!

Who am I? Where do I belong? Big questions! I'd be lying if I said this was stuff that didn't bother or affect me sometimes; but at the risk of sounding cheesy, one of the many things that makes me glad to be a Christian is knowing that God knows who I am better than I know myself - knowing that I can be assured of my identity in Him, of the fact that I belong to Him. When put in that perspective the human boxes I or others try to put me into don't really matter that much!