Shemot

This is the book of Names, and God has one too: Ehyeh, “I will be”. This is my name too, and yours. When someone, Moses for example, says “I”, he means to say that the same collection of molecules called Moses today has an identity, a relationship to the collection of molecules called Moses tomorrow. The word “Moses” is a story; the word “I” is a story; the word “God” is a story. They are good ones, but they also allow for change. ‘I will be’ can imply constant identity, or an evolving identity, a story that develops and changes when the plot is stuck. Changing myself means letting go, for a moment, of the story of a fixed ‘self’.