The Masks We Wear

 

Man holding a white mask up to his face

The Bible is truly the most amazing book on the planet.  One of the reasons the stories in the Bible have been so resilient throughout the ages is because they contain themes and ideas that touch on timeless truths that all of us feel and experience.  Nowhere in the Bible is this more apparent than in the first few chapters of Genesis.

When Adam and Eve fell into sin, eating the forbidden fruit, something tragic, but interesting, happens.  They felt shame for the first time.  Genesis 3:7 says, "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons."  For the first time they knew that they were naked.  A few verses back we read that they were naked and unashamed (2:25), now they were naked and ashamed.  Their eyes were opened, and they knew.  They knew something had gone wrong, that they had done something wrong.  Their innocence was lost.

Critics of this passage and of Christianity in general dismiss this story because Adam and Eve were guilty of eating of the tree of knowledge.  They say that knowledge is always a good thing, "knowledge is power."  To be punished for pursuing knowledge is a form a wickedness, like the Fascists burning books, so the thinking goes.  Of course, they leave off the part where it says, "the knowledge of good and evil" it was not knowledge in general that was denied the first humans, it was the knowledge of good and evil.  Not all knowledge is equal.  Some things are not worth knowing.  I think we would all have been better off if we had never known the reality of slavery, for example.

As the knowledge of their sin rested on their conscience, shame squeezed in our great grandparents.  Held in shame's icy fist, their first instinct was to hide, to cover up.  They could not bear the presence of God.  The light of His holiness seared their sin-consciousness and intensified the shame they already felt.  They sensed the need to cover up and to hide, so they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.  Not very effective disguises by any measure.

Adam and Eve moved from glory, from being naked and unashamed, nothing to hide, to shame, to hiding from themselves and from God behind flimsy costumes that could never conceal them from the all-seeing eyes of God.

Shame is a terrible, tragic thing, but it is not always a bad thing.  I like to talk about two types of shame, healthy shame and toxic shame, and much of the difference between the two is what we do in response to it.  The shame Adam and Eve felt was good, but it led them to create disguises and hide from God, that was toxic.

Shame is like a pain receptor for our soul, it lets us know that we are stepping into dangerous, spirit-damaging territory.  When we feel it, we should correct course, if we do not, that shame can grow and become toxic.

Healthy shame tells us that we have broken a rule, we have crossed a boundary.  We have injured our soul in some way, or we have injured someone else.  It tells us we have done wrong, and we should change our attitudes, beliefs, and behavior in order to restore healthy relations with ourselves, other people, and God.

Toxic shame is different, it sends the message not just that you did something bad, but that you are something bad.  The message in our heads is not, "I did something bad." it becomes, "I am a bad person."  Toxic shame tells us that we are unworthy, inadequate, and unlovable.  Healthy shame tells, "I made a mistake, I should fix it."  Toxic shame says, "I made a mistake.  I am such an idiot.  I never do anything right."  It attacks us at the level of our worth and identity and alienates us from ourselves, other people, and God.

Our society has a phobia of shame in all its colors.  We are told we should feel bright and happy all the time, no matter what.  We should never be made to feel bad for how we look, act, think or believe.

Recently I read about a billboard that appeared in Times Square in the heart of New York.  It featured an overweight woman with her head in her hands and the caption read, "Feeling fat and lazy?"  This caused no end of consternation for many.  The primary concern was this idea of body shaming, using the words "fat" and "lazy" with the image of the overweight woman would cause people to feel shame about their weight or figure.

The billboard was sponsored by a "wellness motivator" Deborah Capaccio.  In defense of the ad, she says that she wants people to address the "negative self-talk" that keeps them trapped in unhealthy patterns.  "We identified as fat and lazy, and those thoughts were sabotaging our efforts to feel good about ourselves and get healthy," Capaccio said.

I am not sure if that billboard was the best way to get her message out, but I think Capaccio is on to something.  Her ad has struck a nerve.  She is bringing into the light a massive problem across our culture.  Our heads are filled with those messages of toxic shame that drive us into unhealthy eating and drinking, to greed, fornication, pornography, and all manner of other vices that we use to quiet those voices and sooth the pain in our souls.

Like Adam and Eve, each and every one of us has sinned.  Not only that, but we were also born into a sinful world filled with sinful people.  Our parents, teachers and spiritual leaders were all sinners and inevitably they have sinned, and in that sin, they have wounded us.  Our own sins and the sins of others against us leave us with a ruptured soul.  Our hearts are broken.  Into that brokenness and rupture shame pours in, like poison into a wound.

This anguish in our soul drives us into hiding.  We hide from God, from ourselves and from those we love.  Toxic shame compels us to make our own little, fig-leaf disguises.  Not in any literal sense, but in our attitudes and beliefs.  We put on mental and emotional disguises, masks, or personas to hide the shame, and rupture in our soul.  We pretend to be what we really are not.

These personas are often formed when we are very young, and the more chaotic the home, the more dramatic the persona we may form.  Some become the rebel, always acting out to get attention.  Others become control enthusiasts, making sure everything is clean, organized, and on schedule.  Some are peacemakers, anytime there is a disagreement they insert themselves to create peace and maintain some superficial level of harmony in the home.

These are masks, false identities that we use to hide the pain and shame that fills our souls.  We hide our true and authentic selves for fear of rejection and abandonment, we protect ourselves with fig leaf disguises.

It is not uncommon in therapy and in recovery circles to talk about the "wounded inner child."  This is a metaphor of sorts used to describe the trauma we have experienced, usually when we are children, but sometimes as adults.  It is possible to be wounded as an adult, the broken men and women who return from war with PTSD are testament to this.  Most of us have some wounds we carry from the time we were children, and these wounds are the soil in which toxic shame has grown and are the reason why we have had to build a persona, in order to protect that wounded child from further harm.

God's desire is to fill us with His Spirit and give us peace and joy, but He can only do that if we are willing to open our hearts and let Him in.  If we are going to find healing and wholeness in Christ, we must let down our guard, let Him into that most tender and vulnerable space and let Him heal us.  This is what we are going to look at across the next couple of posts.

Many people in the Bible had ruptured souls and built-up personas around them to protect themselves.  Next time we will look at a dramatic example of this.

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