Now contrast being lovingly held and nurtured by one's mother with growing up to be a cog in the wheel of industry living in a monotonous suburban development, driving on congested four lane highways to work in a honeycomb of cubicles feeling unknown, unspecial and unloved doing uninteresting and meaningless work. Many people today, go from being the center of mom's universe to an insignificant worker bee slipping into anonymity.

One of the phenomena of group dynamics found in groups larger than about 200 or so is everyone in the group can't know everyone else. The larger the group gets, the more people don't know each other and the more disconnected people become. If the group gets to be the size of a large town or city, many of the group members will never even meet in their lifetimes. A result of large groups is the phenomenum of anonymity.

In small town life, there is very little in the way of anonymity. You are someone's son or daughter and everybody knows your business. Reminds me of a cute story about a Greyhound bus going through a rural area. The bus stopped when hailed by a country woman loaded with packages. The driver, thinking her a would-be passenger, opened the door. She stepped up and looked all around.
"Where are you going?" the driver asked.
"Oh," she answered, "I ain't going anywhere. I just wanted to see who thought they were."[1]

In a small town, the gossip mongers have dissected your personality, watched with amusement your successes and failures and judged your good and bad qualities. For better or worse, in a small town you are known.

I had the good fortune to grow up in a fairly small neighborhood where my parents knew everyone on our street and had a number of friends in the neighborhood. I walked about three blocks to get to my elementary school. My father was the chairman for the Democratic party district. My mother, a community leader, ran for public office in 1972. The Trumbore name was known on Dallas Avenue and in Newark, Delaware. I never felt anonymous in my home town. I was somebody

When I moved to Silicon Valley to work in the computer industry, I felt lost in a sea of people all competing for a place to live, a job, and a parking place. I remember the first night I spent in Palo Alto, California after getting off the train and finding a cheap motel for the night with a heater which was stuck on. I literally sweated out my first experience of being just another faceless street person until I found my first job. While there were many more opportunities than I had had back in my home town, it was much harder to be somebody and get noticed. In California, I felt anonymous. I was nobody.

As more of us experience the transience of modern life, moving from place to place, school to school, job to job and even, in retirement, following the sun to a new community like Port Charlotte, we are uprooted and become anonymous in our new surroundings. I know it has taken us a couple of years to feel like we belonged here. Port Charlotte, like many of the towns in Southern Florida, has a large number of transient people who come down hoping to make a living and keep warm in the winter but can't find suitable work. With the great disruption in corporate downsizing and upsizing cycles, more workers than ever cannot put down roots in a community becoming, in effect, migrant workers following the jobs. It is a rare student who starts taking classes in Charlotte County schools and stays till their high school graduation as I did in the Newark School District.

The United States is unusual among nations because we permit anonymity. In a totalitarian state, cadres of secret police watch every citizen. Everyone carries identity cards and their movements are monitored. No one in Iraq speaks with television reporters off the record as the risk is just too great of not being anonymous. Yes, you are somebody in a totalitarian state, but if you are too much of a somebody, it can cost you your life.

As a free society, we have evolved a right from the process of interpreting the Constitution called the right to privacy which permits people to have a great degree of anonymity. We are protected from government intrusion into our lives. As computer data collection has also evolved, this right to be free from being spied on electronically has grown in importance. Justice John Stevens outlined the importance of this right in a free society in these words:

Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society.

Suspicious of the abuse of power, our forebearers wisely incorporated anonymity into the design of our democracy. A central check against the abuse of power is the way we conduct our elections. The secret ballot makes us all anonymous in the voting booth which protects us from intimidation. My home is off limits from government search and seizure without a warrant. What I do within my walls is protected and none of the government's business.

The church also has a tradition of protecting people's right to privacy that is recognized by statute. Those of the cloth are bound to keep confidences and protect people's anonymity. Unfortunately some are better at it than others as happened with the case of father Patrick.

Tommy went into a confessional box to see Father Patrick and said, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned; I have been with a loose woman".
The Priest said, "Is that you, Tommy?"
"Yes father, it's me."
"Who was the woman you were with?"
"I cannot tell you, Father, because I don't want to ruin her reputation."
The priest asked, "Was it Brenda O'Malley?" "No, Father."
"Was it Fiona MacDonald?" "No."
"Was it Ann Brown?" "No."
"Was it Mary Elizabeth O'Shea?" "No, Father."
"Was it Amy Thomas?" "No, Father."
"Was it little Cathy Morgan?" "NO, Father! I cannot tell you."
The priest finally said, "Tommy, I admire your perseverance as I tested your word, but you must atone for your sins. Your penance will be four Our Fathers and five Hail Marys. Go back to your seat."
Tommy walked back to his pew and his buddy, Sean, slid over and whispered, "What did you get?!"
Tommy said, "Well, I got four Our Fathers, five Hail Marys and six good leads."

This right of privacy doesn't come without social costs. For example, the right of privacy makes the police officer's job more difficult and the criminal's job much easier. When people are anonymous they are more likely to behave irresponsibly. And in a fired up mob, anonymous individuals can become extremely dangerous.

The Internet has been an interesting experiment in anonymity. Due to the fault tolerant, distributed layout of the Internet, electronic messages can be passed around in such a way that the identity of the sender can be hidden. Many of the anarchistic leaning pioneers of the Internet felt this capability was a very good feature of the design. It protected people's freedom to communicate with each other and not be observed by Big Brother. Unfortunately, in today's Internet explosion of activity, we are discovering the down sides to this kind of anonymity. Probably the best known problem is called spamming. A message can be sent to literally tens of thousands of people and the sender can escape accountability for sending junk mail by what is called "spoofing" someone else's electronic name and address. This hapless victim will usually then get a mailbox full of angry responses about being spammed and not know who did it.

No, anonymity is not very advantageous for computer system administrators and has some serious drawbacks for society but it appears to have some advantages for the individual. One illustration of this advantage can be seen in the group called Alcoholics Anonymous.

In AA, anonymity is a crucial component of its program for confronting addictive behavior. The anonymity of the group creates a zone of safety from public humiliation. Hearing the stories of others who you do not know, anonymous stories which resonate internally as terribly familiar, help wake up the addicted person to the depth and scope of the problem she or he is facing. Protected by the cloak of anonymity, the addict can begin to face their problem, reveal it to others and take steps toward recovery.

While anonymity is a useful check against tyranny of the majority and has uses in treating addiction, ultimately, it does not serve our human nature. We all have a powerful need to be known and recognized. Anonymity is a means not an end.

Ann Landers has had a unique window on this need to be known and recognized. "Since I began writing [my] column," she wrote, "I've learned plenty--including, most meaningfully, what Leo Rosten had in mind when he said, ´Each of us is a little lonely, deep inside, and cries to be understood.' I have learned how it is with the stumbling, tortured people in this world who have nobody to talk to. The fact that the column has been a success underscores, for me at least, the central tragedy of our society, the disconnectedness, the insecurity, the fear that bedevils, cripples, and paralyzes so many of us.[2]

The most obvious example of this intense desire to be known can be seen in courtship. We are attracted to intimate relationships because being known is difficult without another who reflects that knowing. Not just anyone can fit this bill. It takes a great deal of confidence and trust to open up our lives to another person. I remember when I met and started dating my wife, Philomena, I was enthralled by our similarities. It was as if we could read each other's thoughts we were so attuned to each other. It was easy to trust her because I felt so safe and cared for in her company.

Unfortunately this wonderful experience of courtship doesn't survive into marriage well. Marriage counseling is full of betrayed lovers lamenting, "He just doesn't understand me anymore. She will not accept me for who I am. He wants to change me into someone else. She sees only the half of me she wants to see." We all yearn for our spouse to know us, love us, and accept us just the way we are not the way they would like us to be. We sign up for marriage to be known not to be fixed.

We need others in our lives because not only do we want to be known by others but also by ourselves. In a sense we are anonymous to our own true nature. While a therapist can help one get glimpses of one's true nature, it takes a lifetime, perhaps many lifetimes, to grasp the universal truths of human nature we live out every day. For most of us, it takes active engagement over a lifetime with another person to help us strip away the masks of self definition others have laid upon us from early childhood. Many times these self definitions correspond to the same ones laid on our parents going back generations. Only those who are intimate with us can begin to see us for who we really are both our wonders and our warts.

This desire to be known was one of the passions which drove my desire to become a minister. Ministers stand in the pulpit on Sunday and talk about what matters. We often become exposed before our congregations as we reveal our inner life. The congregation is a mirror in which I see my strengths and weaknesses. Collectively, you know me better than I probably know myself and in your compassionate revealing of that knowing, I can grow to serve you better.

This gift of self knowledge is not just for the minister but one of the potential benefits of being in religious community. I say potential because many do not take advantage of this opportunity just as many do not allow their marriage to become a source of self-revelation. I believe the experience of knowing and being known is an inherently religious process. It is no accident that the euphemism for intimate relations in the Bible is knowing. We experience love most powerfully when we know someone, wonders and warts, and embrace them as a whole person not in need of repair or revision. Let me tell you, this is an awesome job to take on as a minister. And it is no less awesome in the partnership of marriage.

Unfortunately, this desire to be known cannot be completely fulfilled. Even the most intimate lover or most excellent minister or congregation cannot fully know us. We all filter reality through our own prisms of perception. To escape the pain of this existential anonymity, many seek a savior.

The Fundamentalists have an answer to the dilemma of anonymity: Jesus loves you. That `you' isn't generic, that you is very specific. It is personal down to your most secret thoughts. Once saved from burning in anonymity, you are completely known and loved by God. The challenge is to let in this love, not fear being known, and repent your evil ways. Even before you realize you need something or someone, God is working to arrange the perfect solution embedded in the perfect graceful lesson. Our part is to have faith and accept God's boundless love.

Most Unitarian Universalists who embrace the concept of God, do not think of God as personal in the way we understand a paternal, maternal or fraternal relationship which are often the models presented in more traditional churches. The Universalist insight into the nature of Universal salvation is supported by an almost mystical transformative view of the non-dualistic nature of divinity. We are not in need of redemptive salvation from infinite sin. Our birthright is infinite grace.

In the Universalist view, anonymity is impossible because we are already accepted and loved by God unconditionally. We don't have to do anything to earn the good graces of God because we already have them. The problem is not our separation from God through sin which requires conversion, but rather our recognition that God is already within us. Or, in other words, everyone has Buddha-nature. Everyone has inherent worth and dignity which cannot be removed--but can be forgotten.

I think the mystic and the humanist can find some agreement here. This is an utterly human dilemma: the anonymity of our forgotten true nature. The necessity of growing up to be an autonomous self and socializing in an impersonal competitive world buries our true nature in mountains of baggage from the past and tangled survival strategies for the future. Our own persistent desires and aversions further obscure our true nature. The religious journey to recover that true nature begins and ends by looking in the mirror and asking, "Who Am I?"

The answer isn't revealed in the cut of our clothes or hair. The answer isn't found in a career choice or an avocation. The answer isn't found traveling to far off lands and exotic destinations. The answer isn't found on the psychiatrist's couch or consulting a psychic. The answer becomes clear only in the intersection of the past and the possible future in the present moment. Our true nature is constantly being discovered as we fully engage in the creative process of living. Some of it we will like, some of it we will not.

One thing is for sure, when fully engaged in the creative process of living, we are not anonymous--we are known.

Copyright (c) 1998 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.

[1] -- "The Speaker's Digest," QUOTE, Nov./Dec. 1993, p. 338.
[2] -- Saturday Review as quoted by David Rogne