Together, We Light the Way

WHO IS THAT BEHIND THE MASK?

I have spent nearly all of my life in a kind of spiritual amnesia. I had forgotten who I was. From the moment I was born into this illusion that I think of as my life, I began to look for a separate identity for myself. I was born with one question on my mind: Who am I?

In my search for my identity, I played many roles, and wore many masks. On his website, Dan Joseph tells a story about the roles we play and the masks we wear.

The Costume Ball
Imagine that you are invited to a masquerade ball. You spend weeks choosing a costume for the event. Should you dress up as royalty? As a villain? As someone famous? As an angel?
You eventually settle on a costume, and go to the ball. There you find hundreds of other people, dressed in the widest variety of outfits. The party is all in good fun, and you play through the night in your chosen role.
Then, around midnight, a strange thing happens. Everyone in the costume ball suddenly falls asleep. When they awake, their memories have vanished. Where am I? everyone asks. And silently, they wonder: Who am I?

People look around the room, and begin to sort out the situation. Over there is someone dressed in gold finery, with a crown. She must be the queen of this place. And look at him over there ? he has knives and swords. He must be dangerous. And look at that one: she looks like some sort of animal. Maybe she?s crazy.

There?s a great scramble. People flock to the “good” people, away from the “bad” ones. Some of the good people bravely begin to round up the bad ones, using the weapons at their disposal. For a while there?s a chaotic melee. Eventually, after a struggle, things settle down. The bad people are subdued, and they sit ? tied together ? in the middle of the room.
Then, abruptly, part of a man?s costume falls away, and a woman cries out. “Wait,” she says, “I remember now. That pirate ? he?s my husband. He isn?t really a pirate.” The memories begin to return. “She isn?t a queen ? she?s just dressed that way. And he?s no priest, I?ll tell you that.”

As the costumes come off, people begin to remember their true relationships. “I?m sorry, I didn?t recognize you,” they say as they untie their friends and family. “Please forgive me ? I forgot who you were.” “I don?t know what came over me.”

The party-goers shake their heads at the strange turn of events. They tear off their costumes as they walk out of the party, concerned that they might forget again.
“How easily we are fooled,” remarks a man as he tosses away a mask. “A little cardboard, a little paint, and our loved ones are gone.”

This illustrates perfectly what happens to me as I go through life. I try on different masks. That I tried these masks on and even wore them for awhile did not make them real, nor change who I am. But I am easily fooled into thinking I have become the role I am playing. The role becomes so real, I am so accustomed to the mask, that I forget I have a true identity.

As a very young child I tried to separate myself from my mother, demanding my independence even though I wasn?t ready for it. It was very frustrating for my mom as it was for me when my children entered that stage of their development. At each stage I thought I was developing into an independent, separate person.

As I grew older, the need to complete this separation process became more acute. I needed to know who I was. I tried on a lot of masks as I moved through the process. As a teenager, I traded one mask for another as quickly as I discovered them. I tried being more mature, more glamorous, more hip. I tried being sophisticated. Periodically, I tried going back to being a child.

Even as I moved into adulthood, I kept trying on masks, trying to find one that ?fit?; that felt like me. I wore a student mask off and on for awhile. I saw myself as a college student with all that implied for me. I saw myself as an intellectual, but also as a party person; a combination that was not easy to balance.

I tried on the mask of a more mature wife and mother and when I looked into the mirror, I didn?t recognize that person and was really scared of the responsibility represented by that mask. I took that one off for awhile and threw on a mask easier to wear. I pretty much liked the free spirit mask. There was lots of alcohol, drugs, free sex, hard rocking music, burning my bra, paying lip service to saving the rainforest, and stopping the war, if not actually doing much about it. I liked the thought of connecting myself with these lofty ideas, but it is a little hard to do a lot about it and keep up with the partying.

Well, that pretty much got me through the sixties and into the seventies, but that mask became a little too dangerous to wear. It also became heavy with guilt and regrets, so I put it aside. I wandered around trying first one mask then another, feeling uprooted and uncertain. There was a lot of depression going on as I tried to discover myself, and nothing seemed a good fit.

What I couldn?t see at the time was that I wasn?t alone in my search; that all along there was a guiding hand. Even as I tried these things, there was a guide showing me another way. I ignored my guide for so long that I no longer recognized His help when it came my way, but it was always there and helped me to, eventually, get where I am now.

I was looking, in my mind?s eye, at the discarded pile of masks and thinking what a waste of time all that was. But then I thought, no, not a waste of time. Every role I played, every mask I tried on, taught me valuable lessons. I learned through my errors and the personal guilt they brought me to feel compassion for others as they look for their own path. I learned to forgive others and myself for what I thought were horrible mistakes, and to accept that they were only learning experiences.

For a long time, I was unable to discern my true Self. I thought I was the mask, not the person wearing the mask. But as I discarded the masks I was brought closer to the realization that I am not any of these roles I play. As I took off the mask of one role and picked up the mask of another, I didn?t cease to exist. Who was I in that interim? What I learned is that I have a true identity that the roles I choose to play in my life are masking. I have spent the last several years of my life, learning about my true Self.

What I have learned is this: My true Self is me as God created me, perfectly preserved, waiting for me to notice. And what else could be there? How could I have ever thought differently? To think that I could be different than what God created me to be is arrogance of a degree as to be almost comical. What am I saying here? Am I suggesting that I have the power to un-create what God created? God created me like Himself, so I am powerful, but I am not more powerful than my Creator. Even in my most foolish moment, I could not really believe that. The closest I could come is to pretend that I can?t see the obvious.

So here I am, a child of God, created like Him, therefore powerful and holy; powerful enough to move mountains, holy enough to heal the sick and raise the dead. Didn?t Jesus promise that I could do all he did and more? Why does this sound so unlikely? It even sounds scary to think of it.

I think it is because I have spent so much time making small the power my Father has given me. Instead of playing the Child of God, I have been playing little roles. I have been trying to be something I am not. I have allowed this behavior to obscure the truth of who I am. The most damaging thing I have done to myself is to obscure the truth that I am whole, that I am a part of you and a part of God. I have believed that I exist in a separated state, little me in defense against evil. No wonder I have been afraid and depressed in my life. No wonder I have been guilty and regretful. I thought I had thrown away my birth right. I thought I had thumbed my nose at God and made myself into something He doesn?t know.

I am truly the prodigal son spoken of in Luke 15. I have squandered the gifts of my Father, but He doesn?t care about my foolish mistakes. He only wants me to remember who I am. He doesn?t forgive me because He never condemned me. It is only I who condemned myself to a life without the peace and love of my Father. It is only I who can set aside all those roles I chose to play and all the masks I have worn in this illusion and choose instead to recognize the truth of who I really am; God?s holy child, forever perfect as He created me.

Just as I have been easily fooled into believing in the role I am playing, into thinking I am the mask I wear, I have been equally fooled by your mask. I have thought you were what you did. I have thought the role you are playing defines you and identifies you. But it is not true. You are not a gay couple. You are not a recovering addict. You are not a student, a father, a black man. There are no thieves, no liars, no cowards. There are no strong people, no weak people, no leaders, no followers. There are only children of God, still just as He created them. When they slip out of their masks, and walk away from the roles they have chosen, I will recognize them for who they are and wonder how I could have been so fooled by such flimsy evidence.

Can I see my true Self now? Can I see you as you really are? Is it really only a matter of choosing to recognize the truth of who we are? Could it really be that easy? Well, I never said it was easy. It is that simple, but I have not found it to be so easy. It requires great vigilance to remember my true identity. It also requires that I remember your identity as well. God created you perfect just as He did me. He did not favor me over you. In fact, He created us just the same and that is the secret of our strength. We are strong in our sameness, in our wholeness. We experience our wholeness only when we recognize that we are one. It is in our unity that we know our true self and experience our perfection.

So, if I look at you and see only the mask you wear, I am teaching myself that I am only the mask I wear. What do I see when I look at someone else? This is where my vigilance is important. When I went to visit my friend in the hospital, it would have been easy to see her has sick, weak and vulnerable, but that is only the role she was playing now. ?Sick person? is the mask she was wearing. I give that vision of her to God and ask that I might see her as she truly is. I ask to see her as God sees her, brilliant and beautiful and perfect and very very holy. This picture of her whole and healed is the vision I hold for her until she is able to look past her own role playing and see this for herself. This is my healing prayer for her.

Sometimes the picture I see of the other person is too vivid for me to see past. This often happens when fear becomes part of the equation. Imagine that you were fired from your job and you could not see that you had done anything wrong. Wouldn?t you be angry with your boss? Wouldn?t you think he was jerk? How hard would it be to see him as a child of God instead?

It would be hard for me because I would be feeling fear at the loss of income. In my fear and frustration, I would want to lash out. It would be hard to see this differently. Luckily, God has provided me with the help I need to change my perspective. I have His Voice and I can ask for help. I can give all this fear, and all the thoughts around the fear, to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to show me another way to see it. I can ask Him to show me the reality of my boss; the real person behind the mask.

Even if I am not entirely willing to see him differently, I can give what willingness I have and then ask that the Holy Spirit help my unwillingness. In the one case, I would be looking out of a victim mask and into an attacker mask. The Holy Spirit will change my vision if I let Him. He will help me take off the victim mask so that I can see I am my Father?s Son and then I can see the boss?s true identity and know he is my Father?s Son as well. He is not the attacker that his mask is showing me; he is my brother. Together we are One.

I look at my children and see them as the roles they play for me, which are different than the roles they play for their friends, the roles they play for their bosses and co-workers, for their own children. Sometimes I get a glimpse of one of their other roles, and I have a flash of realization. For a moment, I recognize how flimsy are the trappings that define their different roles. And right beneath these masks, these costumes, is something else for me to see. As Dan Joseph puts it: For a moment, our hearts are touched by a flash of beauty ? perhaps we see it in a friend or family member; perhaps a stranger. But for a moment, we find a glimmer of something that we didn?t know was there.

For a moment, there?s a shimmering of glory that makes the costume seem ridiculous. It might be gone an instant later, but we saw it. And we can see it again. As we let our vision be led past the outer trappings, the light within begins to emerge.

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