I have a friend from college who is a brilliant photographer – she does beautiful, creative work. Sometime in 2010, she came up with a photography project and invited anyone who wanted to participate. She had just stumbled over this line by Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”1 She asked us to write this quote on a sign and then decide what we wanted to do to present who we are in a snapshot. There was a double photo of a guy who worked for a corporation, but was secretly also a skater boy; a security guard/metal drummer/indoor kid photoshopped together with his three selves; an old man who ran a bookstore surrounded by books and coffee; a hippy on a motorcycle with a scarf he knit. Picture after picture revealed subtle things about who people were and how they saw themselves. It was around this time that I was visiting seminaries to pursue my call for ordination.
While visiting Columbia seminary in Georgia, I met a young man named Jeremy who was also a prospective student. We struck up a brief friendship and I told him about this project and asked him what he would do if he could take part. With an odd grin, this is what he said: “I would wear my pajamas and I would drag a mattress and blankets and sheets into my church sanctuary.” I must’ve had a, “Why on earth would you do that?” look on my face because immediately he said, “because the church is my home.”
[1] https://www.forbes.com/quotes/11441/