If you live in the Indianapolis area, you may have run across the headline story in the Indy Star newspaper lately. It's about a teenager, a senior in high school named Brent Jones, who came up to the reporter, Matthew Tully, and said, "I''m Brent Jones. I'm the kid who doesn't exist."
Late in the long article, Tully reveals a scene he witnessed. He watched as Brent tried to buy an energy drink at a convenience store, but because you have to be 18 to buy it (he is), and because this particular clerk wasn't sure and asked for i.d. to see if Brent was 18 or not, Brent could not get his energy drink. Tully describes the young man's frustration. Brent even showed the clerk several sheets from a personal file he likes to carry around with him, with medical records dating back to 1993, and court records dating back to 1994, when he was three years old. Nothing worked.
Brent is lucky that he goes to a high school that will even accept a young man as a student who doesn't have a social security number. Because he has no social security number, Brent cannot get a driver's license, or other i.d.; he cannot get a job to earn money to, among other things, afford to go to school; he cannot apply for financial aid or scholarships for college. You've heard of the old novel The Man without a Country? Brent's The Youth without a Name!
A local judge who knows Tully says she has seen "a handful of such cases every year," cases that often begin with "a birth parent handing off a child to a friend without taking the legal steps required." Brent's mother, at the time he was born, was addicted to drugs and prostituting her body to get them. Another woman stepped in for her in order to take care of Brent. Then the mother left and was never heard from again. None of the phone numbers she gave reached her. The woman Brent now calls mom -- the one who took care of him -- never knew the birth mother's maiden name, the birth father's name, or what state Brent was born in. The judge relates, "You can't penalize the child for the sins of the parent." But that is just what it was doing to Brent.
Even though his personal file didn't get Brent his energy drink, he's still basically optimistic about life, getting A's and B's, is popular with other kids, and tells them that they should follow his example and not let their circumstances be "an excuse to fall into common traps such as drugs and alcohol."
Yet Brent still carries around his file like a lucky rabbit's foot. "It's my security," he says. "I can say, I am this person. I've lived a life, and I can prove it...This is who I am." (By the way, Mr. Tully helped find his birth mom; now he's on his way to a real, adult life.)
Sometimes we may wonder who we are. What makes us "us"? George Bailey (in the movie It's a Wonderful Life) walked around after Clarence the angel's spell took effect. He was dazed and confused. No matter who he talked to, they didn't know him. He related all sorts of shared memories, but they weren't shared any more. Left without these anchors to his everyday life (and our everyday lives!), George Bailey just about flipped his lid.
No one knew George Bailey. No one could vouch for Brent Jones. But God steps in for both. "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you," says God, to George, and to Brent, and to you and me. "I have called you by name, and you are mine." (Isaiah 43:1)
We may wonder, sometimes, in this topsy-turvy world, where our identity lies. Does it lie with our personal records? Other people's memories? With what our egoes think we are? No, no, and no. Our identity lies with God, our Creator and Redeemer, and with God alone. Remember that, the next time you feel lost and alone, rejected or isolated, or haughty and proud.
Only He knows our real name.
David Hewitt
