Did you see any good Masks this Halloween? This time of year, our culture invites us to put on a mask if we choose- the mask of a superhero, a scary monster, or just a simple fabric mask like Catwoman or Zorro wore, that hides our identity and makes us look mysterious. It’s fun to wear a mask, but soon they get itchy or heavy or sweaty, and it’s nice to take them off too.
I bet you saw some N95 masks too, masks we wear to protect ourselves and others from respiratory illness.
To live in this world, we all wear masks sometimes. One kind of mask is what Jung calls the persona, we dress and act and talk in certain ways depending on our role. So for example, when in my minister persona I try not to curse in the pulpit, I change out of my sweatpants and put on my Sunday preaching clothes. We call this kind of masking “being professional” and we generally appreciate it when our barista, hairdresser, surgeon, teacher, lawyer, delivery person put on the conventions of their role while they are doing their job.
Sometimes we mask to be polite- like when our friend makes a special gift for us that we think is ugly or we know we’ll never use, we may try not to let our disappointment show on our face, and focus on our gratitude that our friend took that time to make something just for us.
Another kind of masking happens when we feel we are in grief, or depressed, or feeling emotions too private to share, we might say “I’m fine” when someone asks, because we just don’t feel like talking about it.
We all make choices every day about what we share, and what we keep private.
The insidious nature of masking comes when we are asked, encouraged, forced to mask our diversity, to be more like the dominant culture.
For some folks in our community, we may feel we have to mask the truth of who we are, because it might be dangerous to reveal our true selves. Queer folks, for example, have often had to hide the truth of who we are not only because you could lose your job, your housing, your family if they knew the truth, but in some times and places being queer was against the law. Those of us who are Trans, nonbinary and gender fluid have often spent lifetimes dressing up as the gender they were assigned at birth. And this has a cost, it’s hard on the spirit to act day in and day out in a way that does not come naturally to us. Many folks find it exhausting to have to keep that mask in place, to worry it might slip.
Those of us who are neurodivergent are talking about how they learned “masking” form a very young age. Changing very intimate and core aspects of how they are in the world to help them fit in socially, get through school, hold a job.
I asked My son, who is on the autism spectrum, what masking was like and he said: “Growing up autistic feels like you're on stage during a play when nobody gave you a script or asked your consent to participate. If you get your lines wrong, everyone gets mad at you as if you're supposed to know what you're doing. Doesn't matter who's on stage or who's in the audience, you're always performing unless no one else is in the room. “
“And what is the cost of masking?” I asked “Is it exhaustion?”
Yes, he said, that but more, the cost is “Difficulty in developing your own identity”
Sometimes masking has a heavy cost.
I remember a time in our own congregation when Miss Lindsey, our religious educator, was talking about how we can offer accommodations so kids in our program can be themselves and be successful in religious education, (and by “successful” I mean using any pedagogical means necessary to help kids understand that no one is excluded from God’s love no matter who they are. By “successful” I mean helping children and teens clarify their own values and beliefs so they can grow spiritually, live ethically and serve lovingly.)
One of our volunteer teachers was confused. Back when her kids, now full grown, were in school a goal of education was to help everyone fit, as much as they could, into the standard shape, to pass, as much as possible, as “normal.” And it is true that being able to act “normal” opens a lot of doors, but it can make us think that our value as living beings has to do with being able to achieve the mystical state of normalcy. So this was a pretty radical shift, from focusing on teaching kids how to pass, to mask, to build up that plaster shell, to focusing on the golden buddha within.
Beth Radulski , who was diagnosed with Autusm in her 20s writes:
“This medical model understanding assumes disability is created primarily by a medical disorder in the body or brain. That struggles autistic people or ADHD-ers face with social life, employment, or schooling are because their brain doesn’t work the way it “should”.We are part of a cultural shift where all of us, neurotypical and neurodiverse, are invited to ask “what kinds of spaces could we create that support the range of neurodiverse people to use their gifts and to flourish and co-create a just, abundant world?”
The neurodiversity movement asks us to rethink this. It challenges us to ask how society can change to better include neurominorities (rather than seeing neurominorities as a problem needing to be “fixed”).”[i]
This is a very UU idea, though sometimes we have been slow to see all the ways it applies. How can we, as a UU congregation, continuously challenge ourselves to make this a community where people can notice their true selves? How can we make a community where we feel safe to peek out from behind our masks?
What I love about the story of the Golden Buddha is, first, that the plaster coating, that mask, probably saved that statue. Perhaps we can think of our masks as clever works of art, designed to put others at ease, to express the self we want to show, and to keep us safe.
And when the thick plaster coating was cracked, what was revealed was pure gold -- such a great metaphor for the true self each of us has inside that is so precious. Our true self is so much more valuable than that plaster coating, no matter how clever or carefully decorated. That golden buddha inside can represent the Self, the part of us that is connected to wisdom, and to the divine in all things. According to Jungian psychology, we spend the first half of life building up our ego and our persona, the mask that helps us function in society, and the second half of life loosening our grasp on those outward showings, and turning our attention to the self within.
This is not purely a self-centered pursuit,
As Clarissa Pinkola Estes[ii] Writes:
“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. ... Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.”This week as we go forth out into the world, I invite you to notice how you mask, to notice how it serves you, and when it restrains you. I encourage you to risk letting it slip a bit, in spaces where it feels right to do so. I invite you to think about the masks our society asks us to wear, and be curious about the true self that may be hiding within each and every person you meet. And always I encourage you to return to the golden Buddha within, to let it shine.
[i] https://theconversation.com/what-are-masking-and-camouflaging-in-the-context-of-autism-and-adhd-193446
[ii] https://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=548 Clarissa Pinkola Estes “You Were Made For This”
