When I was growing up I watched a TV programme called 'Dr. Kildare', which was based on a series of movies made during my parents' day about a young medical doctor. I was also affected by a movie with Frank Sinatra and Robert Mitchum titled 'Not As A Stranger' about a medical doctor; so, during this phase of my life I realised I wanted to be a doctor.

At another point I watched a movie titled 'A Man Called Peter' about the life of Peter Marshall, who was a Scottish Presbyterian clergyman who became chaplain of the United States Senate. That's when I realised that I wanted to be a minister.

Prior to both those periods, however, I read a biography of Ernest Hemingway and I realised I wanted to become a writer.

Along the way I have toyed with other things, like becoming a smokejumper or a lawyer, but none of them had the salience, none of them seemed as important a way of defining myself as these others: doctor, minister, or writer.

Then, I entered adolescence and decided I wanted to be a rock musician. So, I taught myself how to play guitar, and at one point I found myself in the San Francisco Bay area going to rock concerts and playing music with friends.

What defines a person? What am I? What is the nature of my being? Martin Heidegger wrote a classic of philosophy titled 'Being and Time', in which he turned the philosophical world upside down with his thinking on the subject of being, but my question is a bit more down to earth. How does what I do define who I am?

In the process of trying to figure that out, I also realised that I wanted to be somebody. I wanted to feel important.

It would not have been good enough to dabble in medicine; I wanted to be an important doctor who saved lives in a dramatic fashion, had a great clinic, and involved a lot of people in a magnificent enterprise.

Well, I did not become a medical doctor, but I did become a doctor of psychology, and I feel that I do important work. I did become a minister and did that for about 13 years before going into clinical psychology. I learned guitar and I managed a rock band on the road for a full year of touring; I'm playing in a jam session at a professional conference in Philadelphia this June.

I also became a writer, and I have a couple of books people can purchase at Amazon.com. I did these things, but what part did they have in making me into the person I am?

Recently I realised that I was lead organiser on an international research project involving clusters of practitioner-researchers from the US, England, France, Russia, and Turkey and that the project will result in several published articles in professional journals in these various countries.

That feels huge, but does it make me important? Do I feel like I'm somebody because of these things?

Am I somebody because of what I do or because of who I am? Put another way, am I important because of what have accomplished or because I simply exist?

When I became a Christian, I realised that I was important because I was made in the image of God and because Jesus died for me. These are things people hear constantly in religious talk. I am almost sick of saying them, because it feels so glib to do so. What do they actually mean? What real life events do they correspond to? Do I feel it? Do I know it inside to such a degree that the drive to be important, to be somebody, is satisfied through believing these tenets of doctrine?

They are not dry and doctrinaire if I experience the truth of them for myself. And I do. I did. I still do. Now, I spin out projects in my professional life for the fun of it, not so that I can be somebody and get people to like me because of our mutual engagement in the project. I play guitar because I get into the music, and if I had enough life left in me, perhaps I would concentrate more on that creative pursuit. I write because of all things that is what I sense I was made for.

I am the product of every place I've been, every person with whom I've lived, every experience I've had.

I'm at a place in my life, though, like standing on a mountain and being able to see vistas, in which I realise that I am a vessel made for writing. I may be a doctor, but I'm a doctor who writes about the field of clinical psychology. I may be ordained, but I'm a minister who writes about the kingdom of God. I may be a guitar player, but … well, I haven't written about that yet. Hmm.

What I do is not who I am. The story I tell myself about who I am is populated and informed by the opportunities I've had to experience myself in various situations, but that is not who I AM. I exist right this instant as a child of God, made in His image for relationship with God, and redeemed from finitude by the Son of God.

I am important, because God's son died in order to redeem me and keep me for the purpose of this relationship. What I DO is another matter, peripherally related, but really another thing. Martin Heidegger did not get it; he got a lot of things, and he was profound, but he did not understand the impact of one's being loved by the Ground of All Being. It changes everything.