Mistaken Identity

I'm on retreat with my Irish Methodist ministerial colleagues this week, under the title of Re:Call, which given my appalling memory for names and a couple of encounters this afternoon is somewhat ironic. But what follows comes from those first day encounters, emails that I regularly receive concerning a playwright who died nearly 20 years ago (including three today when I finally got online), necessitating my pretentious middle initial when I write, and inputs from the front by our own President David Turtle, the General Secretary and my friend Heather Morris, my former Greek lecturer Derek McKelvey and the superb Neil Hudson...

Undeserved, but sincerely meant

thanks, for something I didn't

probably wouldn't say or do,

from a colleague who, clearly

doesn't really know me.

I'm not that David...

Nor that David Campton.

No, I didn't write that letter,

Or that play, or that book.

You are mistaken, I'm afraid.

A hearty handshake and hello,

for someone standing alone,

only to see, over his shoulder,

across the room, the person

that I thought I was greeting.

No labels - to help us out,

reminding us who is in front of us,

limiting our expectation of each other,

limiting my expectation of myself.

No need for labels - God knows...

our name, and who we really are...

our name, and who we might yet be...

No misconceptions, no mistaken identity

Because our true identity is to be found

in God.

Selah

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