OpenSpirit Sunday Evening; April 26, 2009; 7-8pm
“The Masks We Wear”
A wise Scot, John Bell, suggests that our churches are too often like “gatherings of strangers,” people masked in ways that prevent us from a real knowing of who we are together with others. It may well be true, for just this reason, that our longing to find the courage and clarity to drop the masks we put on — or those others seem to put on us — is a deep source of hope for us. Tonight, we’ll explore masks, those that we choose to wear to keep us safe and those that we become accustomed to.
"Road to Emmaus," He Qi
We’ll hear an ancient story about a journey of friends who could not see a truth that was visible in their midst, perhaps because of the masks they had taken up in their fear and confusion. We’ll put on masks, and consider what it means to keep them on — and how it feels to move among other masked persons.
We’ll also explore a poem by Bill Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other,” which begins:
“If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. ”
Will we find the right god who can help us set our masks aside, and find the way “home” by the light of the star shining in the night sky to guide us? Join us for music, meditation, song, prayer, and ritual as we explore what it means to be people called into the light and offered the courage to be ourselves and see others with a knowing that is freedom.
Thank you, Mark, for opening the mystery and sadness and opportunity for relationship mediated by the masks we wear. Yesterday, I heard a story on NPR’s “All Things Considered” about the artist Ernie Barnes, who has died. and
One striking element of the art of this striking artist, striking man, is that he always painted his human figures with their eyes closed. “We don’t see each other. We are blind to each other”s humanity.”
And I thought it resonated with the different ways we reveal ourselves to each other. We sometimes see each other without being seen as when we look at Ernie Barnes paintings. We sometimes see each other with masks on that make us curiously more visible as when you invited us to don simple black masks in Sunday evening’s worship. We sometimes only see each other in the breaking of bread.
Peace and Blessing,
Brad