My mask

If you've been away for at least a couple days, start here before proceeding.
Then read here.

Though we're strangers still I love you
I love you more than your mask
And you know that you must trust this to be true
And I know that's much to ask - Rich Mullins

It isn't just our dressers and closets and pole barns that are jammed.  That's the easy part to simplify.  The harder part?  Ceasing all of our complicated artificiality. - Lonni Collins Pratt, Benedict's Way

(I'm cheating, really.  The first quote was cited by the author of the second.)

It isn't that I'm terribly fond of my mask.  I hate it, really.  It feels disingenuous, and I hate dishonesty.  I'd rather know you hate me for my past than think that you likely would if you just knew it. (No "you" in particular, there; all of you, world.)  That's part of why I'm grateful for the other person with me in list 2.  The thing is, somebody I trust once suggested that my mask is my gift to those around me.

I know he didn't mean to imply that my true self is hideous.  He's a gentle soul, with wisdom and wit and a deep love for God.  He didn't express a trace of revulsion toward me, and was understanding of my quandary.

"I feel I'm being dishonest with everyone who thinks they know me," I told him, several years after having dealt with and worked through my great failing, yet still feeling less than fully resolved over it.  (This has a really long half-life.)

"I understand," he replied gently (I'm paraphrasing; it's been at least 8 years). "It's a testimony to your character that you feel that way."  (My friend Tom had said as much.)  "But when you share this with others, you lay a great burden on them.  By the time you trust someone enough to feel you ought to tell them, they'll feel obliged to forgive you, and it's likely to be very difficult for them to do so."

I suppose he was telling me that the people I love and respect would likely quote Rich Mullins to me, never dreaming that they'd be asking more of themselves than of me, and that I'd be pretty selfish to put them to that test.  So that leaves me longing for the authenticity and simplicity that I seem to have forfeited forever.

The simple truth is that it doesn't matter how many people are in list 1 as long as I remain in list 2.  Also,

• given how much affirmation I've already received, it is in fact most selfish - and perhaps neurotic - of me to want add anyone else to list 1 (so don't ask me!), and
• it would be most arrogant of you to think that you could make a difference being in list 1 when there are already so many good people there (so don't ask me!)

(Not to say that I'll never tell anyone else, just that those aren't good reasons.)

It would be the epitome of arrogance for me to approach life as if somehow Christ's sacrifice is sufficient for everyone else's sins (after all, I'm quick to offer grace to others) but mine.  But sin has many burdens beyond the spiritual alienation that is its greatest; all other burdens serve to dissuade one away from sin so as to avoid this separation.  One other of these burdens would seem to be my mask.

Sometimes I struggle to remember, or to fully believe, that Jesus' death was for a specific purpose, that He has borne the primary burden of my sin.  I must keep my eyes upon him, and to do so I must believe in Him.  I mustn't, for instance, dwell overlong on whether all of Christianity has somehow been built on the desire of his followers to salve their disappointment.

For when my eyes aren't on Christ, the burden of my mask grows quote onerous again.  At such times, it becomes a great millstone, and life is the raging sea.  But with a word he calms the sea, and all I need do is to listen for his voice.