we all wear masks

in lieu of halloween we'll talk about masks...

I'm sure we all would like to think that we don't wear masks...but we do. Some masks we have worn for so long that we do not even realize we still wear them. They become seemingly comfortable to us because we wear them so often and for so long that lose sight of the real "me" that is underneath. Often it is only in those special moments with certain loved ones that we find the comfort to take off our masks and are free to just simply be. i desire to be one who makes you feel comfortable enough to just be...

The Mask: Please Hear What I'm Not Saying [author unknown]
Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a mask.
I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off, and non of them are me.
Pretending is an art that's second nature to me, but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well without.
That confidence is my name and coolness is my game, and that I need no one.
But don't believe me. My surface is my mask. Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, to shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation-that is, if it's followed by acceptance, by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from my own self-built prison walls.
It is the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself-that I'm really worth something.

But I'm afraid to tell you this; I'm afraid that your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love.
I'm afraid you'll laugh, and that laugh will kill me.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing and nothing of what's really everything, of what's crying within me.

Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying, what I'd like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say,
I'd really like to be genuine and spontaneous, and me, but you've got to help me.
You alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic and uncertainty, from my lonely prison.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back. I am irrational-I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
But I'm told that love is stronger than strong walls.
Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle hands-for I am very sensitive.
Who am I, you may wonder.
I am someone you "know" very well, I am every man you meet, I am every woman you meet.



whether I am with friends, in class, at work or with clients I am surrounded by masks and donning some different mask of my own. let's be intentional, to be real, to be judgment free and abundantly loving enough to take off our masks and accept the maskless lives of others.