Taking Off the Mask
It turns out that Halloween has an expiration date of sorts. When your kids are little, it’s all…go, go go….town parades, school plays, parties, and the hero of it all, trick or treating. As a parent, you brace yourself for the torrent of emotions that come when you swipe half of the candy because no child needs to eat their weight in whoopers, you prepare the back-up hat for when your five-year-old loses theirs after the first long, dark driveway, but no one tells you that you have to prepare for the reality that, all of sudden, Halloween stops. You aren’t needed to pull the red wagon along the sidewalk, full of coats, gloves, water, and back-ups sneakers (no Cinderella makes it more than a block in those plastic, sparkly shoes). Here’s how it actually goes….one year it turns into a kids-only endeavor (so you lurk near-by making sure everything stays on the rails) and then the next year, they don’t even get a costume and the trick or treating is scoffed at (secretly they still want the free candy, but it’s just not cool anymore). As I said…Halloween has an expiration date.
I was recently talking through this phenomenon with a dear friend, and it got us both reminiscing about our favorite part of this strange, little holiday. We agreed it was the post trick or treat unmasking that was the best moment of it all. The time when the costumes come off, the masks get propped up on foreheads or tossed to the side, and the make-up smears down the faces of the once was spider man. Loot is poured out on the kitchen floor, counted and cataloged, and we all breathe a sigh of relief that once again there is plenty to go around.
This got me thinking about how reflective that moment is of what it is often like in our day-to-day lives. We all have masks we wear. We secure them in place to avoid letting others see what is really happening in our lives, to create the allusion of neat and tidy, or whatever else we think the world wants to see. The masks are like a security blanket to keep out the inquisitive eye. It’s ironic because for the most part we all want to just get to the kitchen floor with a good stash of chocolate, the people closest to us, and no masks to obscure our view.
We miss out on some amazing moments when we hold onto our carefully constructed imagines and don’t let others truly see us as we are. Just like the post trick or treat frenzy, the best parts of our lives are when we are able to get rid of the masks and be fully seen. There is not a lot of growth that can happen when all our energy is put into hiding; there is no bandwidth left to take a look at our true selves. To be vulnerable in this way is hard, to be fully seen can be scary, and we need to carefully choose whom we open up ourselves to. But when we do, we create the freedom of a space where we can hear the whispers in our hearts to be all that we have been uniquely made to be.
God only created one of each of us and I don’t believe the plan was for us to then go and cover that all up. Being fully seen, wholly known, is already part of our everyday lives. God’s got that covered. God sees who we are and loves us no matter what. If we lean into this truth, putting down our masks to be real and vulnerable with each other, we make room to grasp the totality of who we really are. The unmasking provides real truth and authenticity that is the fuel to a life more fully lived.
So, I hope that as you greet the princesses and pirates at your front door, trudge through the rain with the plastic pumpkin buckets, or watch wistfully at the little fireman dragging his plastic fire hose behind him, you reflect on what masks you might want to take off a little more often. It might just be once in while and for a few carefully chosen people to start with, but why not choose today to start? Give yourself the gift of an unobstructed view and the blessing of having others show you how loved you are just for being you.