Have you ever pondered that commonly used phrase, ‘I need to find out who I am’? Well, so do I and I feel like an insignificant brown wren on a feeding table for parrots. All the food is aimed at parrots. There are big pieces of corn and sunflower seeds and other big stuff that no wren could even swallow, let alone digest.

It is the wrong food for me because I am just a brown wren.

It has been shoved at me for years, big, hard chunks of the stuff that sit there starving me to death.

You gotta eat it, everyone screams, you gotta like it. It’s the gospel and you gotta feed on it.

But where did it come from, where did it grow, who planted it, who harvested it and who ground it fine?

Doesn’t matter, you gotta eat it!

Where’s the box with the parrot food, I ask, I want to get to the bottom of it.

You gotta start from the top of the box, you don’t need the stuff at the bottom, you gotta eat from the top.

But like the brown wren, I don’t want to eat from the top of the box, I want the fine-ground stuff at the bottom of the box.

So, being a brown wren, I find the box and dig down deep and peck the fine-ground from the bottom of the box.

I find such tiny fragments there, the beginning of all food, the beginning of all nutrition.

Firstly, God. He is the very first thing you find on the bottom of the box because ‘in the beginning God created.’ Then came night and day, followed by land and water and trees and grass. After that were sun, moon and stars. Next came the living creatures in the water and in the air and they got the very first blessing to increase and multiply.

Finally came the land animals and then there was a closed meeting. In the meeting, Elohim, God in the plural, said ‘Let us make man in our image after our likeness’ and that was the beginning of me.

Fine-ground, I know who I am, where I came from, who planted me, who harvested me, who winnowed me.

So don’t force me to eat parrot food first. I need to know who I am before you start telling me about salvation and grace and sin and all the other chunks.

The identity parade is in the first two chapters of Genesis and you will find who you are when you select fine-ground. So, for the sake of proper nutrition, start with fine-ground.

Elizabeth Price reprice@dragnet.com.au