I am the person best qualified to introduce myself to you. You will probably agree after reading my bio-rap.

A person might think that introducing oneself is about the easiest thing that he/she can choose to do. But self-introductions can be difficult. The main reason for this is because most people are afraid to let others know who they are. As John Powell put it, "I am afraid to let you know who I am because you may not like who I am." (from "Why I am Afraid to Tell You Who I Am."
Whenever I ask the leading question about myself, "What is it that I amount to ultimately?" the answer is always the same: "I am a child of God." The matters of my nature and significance are established and defined in terms of my relationship to God. It is in this child-Father relationship paradigm that I embrace in introducing myself.
In this classic phrase, "cognito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am), the French Philosopher, Rene Descarte, accredited his existence to his thinking. It seems that his facts and reasoning would be more in order had he said, "I am, therefore I think." Of course, thinking is a limited way to define, let alone account for, man individualy or collectively. A person is more than his thoughts just as the Creator has to be more than what He created. The thinking apparatus and thought process are only parts of him. In introducing the myself in the "I am," or the myself that is the "I am," I want to share with the reader something more than my thoughts and feelings.
I mentioned feelings because my feelings are such a vital part of me as will become evident in this discussion. Sometimes I have to say, "Damnit, I feel!"
I could begin this self-introduction by giving my name, occupations, past and present, places I have resided, educational achievements, travelogues, and the names of important people I know or think I know; some of whom would not know me and others of them who would not admit that they know me even if they did. However, this form of introduction appears to be the all-too familiar format taken from some "Etiquette Book On the Proper Way to Introduce Yourself," now sufficiently embedded in tradition, that assures people a degree of comfort and acceptability when they introduce themselves in that manner. I have rejected this format when introducing myself and refuse to encourage or even cooperate with people who use it, primarily because I realize that the essential person is something or someone different from and more than what the contents of this mundane introduction format reveals. The essential person is unique; he is not the curator of a system of beliefs or custodian of traditions that, more than anything, undermines his authenticity, and causes him to doubt that he knows what he knows about himself and compels him to accept imputed or assigned meanings of his experience rather than those discovered from his experiences. Consequently, his beliefs become more important than his experience and his living a pretense or illusion. His world is a make-believe world.
"Myself" is composed of body, mind and soul. My soul, unlike my body and mind preexisted and it will postexist after my mortal existence is terminated. As a matter of fact, it is my soul that is the reason for my mortal existence. Unlike my body and mind, my soul exists in time, while at the same time, transcending time. Although I am a child of timelessness, I am still in the making, no less than I was prior to my being born. "Myself" results largely from the making, working and caring or lack of caring for my soul. This is the myself that I am introducing because this is the authentic myself. My present character did not exist during the early years of my life. It was only after years of self-hatred, self-pity, despair, and a bitter struggle to prevent my puny self from being totally destroyed, that I began to realize that I had a right to be on Planet Earth. Somehow, from my earliest years, I had accepted that others had a right to be here but not me. It didn't happen suddenly, but after I became aware and accepting of my right to be here, I ceased considering myself to be a trespasser on Planet Earth. I began seeing myself as an heir who had a right to claim my inheritance. During my self-discovery adventure years, I encountered numerous forces that attempted to keep me from being myself. I had to fight, night and day, to be myself. Not least among my foes were traditions and beliefs. "Papa knows best, as did his papa" like a bacon light constantly flashed in an emblazoned display before my eyes as I struggled to break free. Beliefs were at the heart of my conceptionaliztaion of myself - my inferiority and unworthiness. My masquerading and charading did little to make me feel good about myself. Feeling good about myself was not a part of my self-concept. I told myself, or maybe I just accepted what others had told me about myself, that I did not deserve or have a right to feel good. My adoption and employment of the "as if principle" - pretending to be strong rather than weak, secure rather than scared, and worthwhile rather than insignificant - were not sufficient to change my attitude. I was vulnerable and usually other people were aware that I was a pretender. Sometimes they told me so. Sometimes while engaged in my redefinition performance, I fell flat on my face or was knocked down. Fortunately, for me I always got up and kept going, if not immediately, before long.
My transformation came in the form of a conversion that caused me to accpet, not just in theory but in consciousness, that I was a child of God. It was then that I discovered that I had talents that I had never recognized and, in and ecstasy-like state of existence rather than the self-doubting state that I had known before my conversion, I began to celebrate myself and life. I was "born again" that is, the myself that I am about to introduce to the readers of this book. My old self I scarcely remember and besides, I have no desire to remember it. The new and present tense myself is the embodiment of complexities, contradictions and paradoxes. It is the myself who often feels invincible in the face of challenges and the vicissitudes of life. It is the myself that sometimes feels aggrieved, furious, and indignant about man's inhumanity to man, as revealed in the poverty that exists in the midst of affluence, excesses and wastefulness, murders, including those whose deaths result from the hegemonic oppressiveness caused by governments, especially, the present American Government staffed with some people who judge America as being the world's sole super power that possesses a superior military power and an assumed obligation to use that power to dominate and afflict other nations and force them to also deal treacherously and violently with those nations that the American Government determines to be enemies of America. This myself hates evil with its many faces and masks it wears. These things cause me tremendous pain and intermittently deprive me of my joy although not for very long. Without joy, life would not be worth living. Like Jesus who wept over Jerusalem, I find myself weeping when I see the widespread inhumanity unleashed by the more powerful upon other human beings. Sometimes, more than just being aggrieved, I take direct action against these sinister forces and people by protesting or speaking out against injustice. Sometimes I act alone and at other times, I join with others, usually with just a few people, who are just as committed to fighting injustice as I am. A free spirit, I have often echoed these words of the activist abolitionist James Russell Lowell, who said, "They are slaves who dare not be in the right with two are three."
I am a creative person. During my creative moments when the floodgate to the river of my soul is opened, I am unfetterd and I express creativity in many ways, including in writing, composing music, singing, dancing and delivering messages as well as in blissful silence. Sometimes the things I do when I am being creative make other people feel uncomfortable, not because I am being uncouth, profane or infringing upon others' rights, or that I deliberately and willfully want to offend others, but rather because my daring to do openly what some people cannot muster the courage to do remind them of their cowardice and unfreedom. A person cannot be free if he puts having his behavior approved by others above the self-approval of his behavior. But as I share with people, I often encounter gratitude extended to me by them. During my troubadouring, I have had some applauders along the way and I am thankful for them. Nevertheless, I have learned to feel good when I am just doing my own thing for no other reason than I am doing what I honestly want to do which at times includes being alone. Sometimes I play my harmonica while I am in the streets, at the airport and whenever I feel led by the spirit to play it. To those who ask or insist on knowing who I am I may respond by playing my harmonica and then singing these words: "I am a Musicmaker. I play the harmonica. That's why I am called "Uriah Harp." Sometimes the listeners respond, saying enthusiastically, "Uriah Harp!" Or, "Thank you! Play some more!" My creativeness is expressed in ways that include the sensuous and sexual. I love nature and there are times when I have an oceanic and oasis-like experience as I internalize the land, water and sky as one. At other times, I may focus on a single flower, tree or bird. I even sing with the birds and hum and buzz with the bees. When I was a boy growing up in the hamlet called Sunflower, Alabama, I was captivated by the bees. My father was a beekeeper. I got many stings, but I tell people "I got more honey than stings." I was even more captivated with deer, my favorite animal, then and now, than with the bees. I maintained that I have a closer resemblance to the deer than I do to any other animal, not in body structure but in the spirit of aliveness that I observed and admired, almost with awe, in the deer, during my growing-up years. I still do.
I am a sexual being and from time to time I remind myself that it was a sexual compulating act of my parents that started me on my journey, that brought me from a preexisting state to a conceptual state. I continue to thank them for their sexual engagement that reproduced me. I am glad to be here! I never felt like I was an unwanted child by my parents or myself. I enjoy sex in its many expressions. Based on my own experiences I agree with David Boadella, the leading English interpreter of Wilhelm Reich who, in discussing the "full orgasm" declared: "... the recharging and nourishing effects of a good orgasm ascend the body in an upward wave, which produces the clouding of consciousness, incompatible with a cool head in sex. This ascending flow brings with it a feeling of rooted spirituality."
I consider the purpose of my mortal existence as being two-fold: (1) for soul-completion and (2) to glorify God. While my soul-completion and His glory each has its own specificity, they are interlinked, no less than the wind and a breeze or water and the flow. However, it is when I focus on myself, at least for a brief while, apart from focusing on God, that I am able to do certain soul-completion work. I repeat, that's one of the two reasons I am on Planet Earth. I had better things to do and was already at a better place, except the actualization of my soul--my soul-completion-- required that I have "release time" from "glory so that I could come to Earth to work out my soul salvation and, at the same time, glorify God. Some souls are more perfect than others and I feel that the most perfect souls are those who have rendezvoused with and settled on Planet Earth. Having claimed soul-completion as an ultimate concern, i.e., making it more important than anything else in my life, except glorifying God, I am empowered to live powerfully. I cannot allow anything, however satisfying or gratifying it may be, to undercut or compete with the maturation and actualization of my soul-completion. The actualization, or more correctly, the actualizing, of my soul-completion is manifested in my growing, especially my spiritual growth, serving, enjoying and communing with God."

(The above excerpt is from my book, "God With Us." by Uriah J. Fields. (pp. 53-59). I have received comments from people who said that this book has made a difference in their lives -- a difference in how they perceive God, others, themselves and the world. Maybe you will benefit from reading it. You may order your copy of "God With Us" on-line from either www.amazon.com or www.publishamerica.com

Copyright 2006 by Uriah J. Fields