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I was about 14 years old when this photo was taken, so my sisters would have been about 12 and 10. That’s Mary on the left and Rebecca on the right, mugging for the camera with someone else’s sunglasses.

I clearly don’t want to be in the photo. Mary seems ambivalent and Rebecca is having fun with it. Something about this seems like a good symbol of my childhood. We were all in the same places and going through the same experience for those years — but we reacted to it in radically different ways.

Even though it’s been decades, I can’t seem to leave that time in my life completely behind. I spent about 90 minutes this afternoon talking with Rebecca about some issues on her mind. It was surprising how many of today’s issues required one of us to ask, “Do you remember when…”

Even though my sisters and I have gone in very different directions — and we have almost nothing to do with one another anymore — we still can’t escape the drama and dysfunction of where we all started.

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It was 19 years ago this week that a powerful tornado slammed into Tuscaloosa, Ala., and killed 11 people. One of the most powerful images from the aftermath of that tragedy was this photo of a man carrying what appeared to be the lifeless figure of a small child from the rubble of her home.

The picture was shot by a Tuscaloosa News photographer and it appeared in newspapers around the world after it was carried by the Associated Press wire. The man is Michael Harris and the little girl is 6-year-old Whitney Crowder.

For years, I had assumed she died that day, but I found out Monday that she is alive and has a happy family of her own.

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Personal growth is a path to alienation from the world.

When I was younger, I assumed that things such as spiritual growth and personal development would allow me to fit in with those around me better. I thought that as I learned to love others and learned to experience God more fully, it would be easier to live in human society.

I’ve realized lately that the truth is just the opposite. It’s easy to fit into the culture around us without emotional or spiritual growth. All it requires is molding ourselves into whatever those around us want.

But finding transcendental meaning and discovering your true self require you to give up what your culture and your friends and your family want you to be — because human culture is ultimately in conflict with what God created us to be.

I’ve realized lately that Jesus told us this 2,000 years ago, but we’ve simply missed the point. Finding the truth — and finding our true self — requires us to be something entirely different from what our culture demands.

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