MASKS

I have a collection of masks, mostly decorative in nature, bought in Venice on travels as a memento, two theatrical masks to celebrate our children’s giftedness in stage performance, some given as gifts to increase the collection, and one not so beautiful but poignant in these times…a beaked mask, as worn in the times of the plagues as protection from disease by doctors and others in the healing profession.

There are ritual masks, funerary, fertility rites, and festive masks, to name a few.

Regardless of the situation, the mask did just that…masked the identity of the wearer. Whether for disguise for protection of one’s identity from recrimination, punishment or judgement, protection from disease, or symbolic in theatre, status, sanction or control, the aim was to be able to operate “under cover”. In these times, as in times past, there is a place for their mandating in public spaces for the protection of all.

I’ll come right out and say it though! I hate masks!  While now free of my former claustrophobia, I still find the mandatory wearing of masks in hospital settings and public settings, very difficult, as I’m sure most do.

There is a deeper side to this topic not steeped in the debate of necessity or efficacy. I think this is beautifully illustrated in my experience in the hospital lift the other week. A small elderly lady and I entered the lift, each going to the infusion ward for our treatment. Masked and socially distanced, she remarked to me how much she missed giving and receiving smiles. Her comment was that it was impossible to see if someone smiled when wearing a mask. I said people smiled as much with their eyes, but I am not sure that is always true. I believe, yes, in the case of a genuine smile, but I think we have become shallow in our acknowledgement of each other. When my eyes are all I have for my nonverbal communication, I need to make it count. A smile is a simple yet powerful act of communication and acknowledgement, but it needs to be expressed in our eyes and body language to matter.

We are being stripped of a large percentage of our social interactions outside of social media. Our faces, designed as a social tool, each tiny muscle and movement read by our counterpart in communication as “friend “or “foe”; our touch reduced to an elbow bump or gloved or sanitised interaction; our group activities stifled by social distancing and banned togetherness. We cannot sing in worship. We cannot dance. We cannot swim or exercise in groups or shared spaces. Our joy is confined, restrained.

It is in this current social framework I am being called on to take what is apparent negativity and restriction and learn new and creative means of caring, communication,

My dearest friend Anna was telling me about an impactful verbal Zulu greeting shared by the people of South Africa, that in essence is “I see you”. “The greeting,” writes Holden,” is an invocation spoken in two parts”..  I searched this when I got home and found a beautiful article on this phenomenon by Robert Holden, (Psychologist) and his use of this greeting process in his therapy sessions. (Holden, 2011)

When 2 people meet, they make deep and deliberate eye contact, which Holden says is “akin to soul contact”. The greeting “invokes the person’s spirit to be present and to fully inhabit the moment…a willingness to engage with integrity.” Holden also writes, the greeting “offers an intention to release any preconceptions and judgements so that “I can see you as God created you.” One says, “I am here to be seen” ( “Sikhona”). The response given is “I see you” “Sawubona” and then the greeting is reversed by each. I am deeply moved by this philosophy , called ubuntu, “a spiritual ethic…to help your brothers and sisters remember their true identity, recognise their true value and participate fully”.

What an awesome philosophy! We have much to learn!

So, eye contact is, in this time and space becoming important…”, a skill that should not be taken for granted or forgotten”, says Garrett Rubis. .. another author who has edited and published a blog by Lorne Rubis (Lorne Rubis, 2016) on this Zulu greeting, the article well worth a read and reflection on the intention behind the words spoken…. and a skill that needs to be introduced and relearnt in the “face” of our masked existence.

We are, in essence, relational beings, designed for community, family, and relationship.

Yet many have, in their woundedness, taken to wearing masks of a different kind, hiding behind facades of behaviour and attitudes not true to ourselves. These “persona’s” we present to the world are to shield us, we think, from further hurt but in the process become prisoners of the very persona we have fabricated for our perceived protection. Mine, for many years, had been the Good Girl. Always on hand, ever available. In the words of (Kidd, 1990). In this process I silenced my own voice and my own unique truth of who we I am in Christ

There is One for whom no mask, material or metaphorical, can conceal me from His sight. He “sees me” …every flaw and fault; every thought and action; every hurt and hindrance; every fear and failure; every joy and hope; every dream and aspiration….and He loves me ”in spite of me”.  (Leonard, n.d.)He knows everything there is to know, past, present and future. What He is wanting from me is the exchange response of that Zulu greeting…” I am here to be seen”.

In Colossians 3:8-11, Paul tells us “to take off the old life with its masquerade and disguise. For you have acquired a new creation life which is being continually renewed into the likeness of the One who created you, giving you the full revelation of God. In this new creation life, your nationality makes no difference, or your ethnicity, education or economic status….they matter nothing! For it is Christ that means everything as He lives in every one of us.”

To get to a point where I can accept that God’s love for me can in no way be compared with anything I have ever experienced is a major hurdle in being freed from other’s expectations and striving for acceptance. It is a “too good to be true”, incomprehensible story of grace…but then grace in its purest form is just that…incomprehensible…inexplicable.

How then does this acceptance and act of grace towards me reflect in my day-to-day interactions with those around me? I need to respond to others with love, grace, acceptance, tolerance, patience, particularly in these current stressful and uncertain times.

My face is covered, and the normal means of communication is compromised, which, if I think about it, has relieved me of any real responsibility in an exchange with another. I can smile to improve someone’s day, to acknowledge them and in doing so, acknowledge too our common predicament.

The answer came to me in a Bible reading during my devotions the other morning. Jesus is doing a new thing! Isaiah 43: 18-19 reads:

“Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past.

See….I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

There has been a slogan around for a while…A smile costs you nothing.

I think I am being called to a greater cost. It has to cost me something!

To fully communicate and demonstrate the love of God, as He has done for me, I need to DO something. That is a cost in time, process, purpose…. something deliberate, intentional, meaningful.

People now speak of the “New Normal”.

If I am being instructed to forget how things were and embrace what is the “NEW” then I am being challenged to be creative in my interaction processes and exchanges with others. A brief scroll through social media will demonstrate enormous spirit in embracing change, addressing and acknowledging struggle and injustices…. humanity rising to the challenge.

My test, as a Christian, is to bring God’s kingdom here on earth. I am meant to be the light, the change, the difference…the “way and the streams in our current social distancing wilderness and wasteland”.

How?…Acts of random kindness, a  meal for an elderly neighbour unable or fearful to get out; pay for the person behind you me in a queue; send a gift, card or hand written not of encouragement to someone struggling; pop some hand baked goods in the tearoom at work; maybe even go right out and send some word of praise to a community or government leader doing a difficult and unpopular job.

These are instruments of peace, applications of grace, demonstrations of love and kindness…the “body language” of my faith.

1 Thessalonians 5:16 says, “Let joy be your continual feast. Make your life a prayer…and in the midst of everything, be always giving thanks, for this is God’s perfect plan for you in Christ Jesus”.

Holden, R. (2020). Healyourlife.com. Retrieved from Healyourlife.com.
Kidd, S. M. (1990). In S. M. Kidd, When The Heart Waits (p. pp6 and 60). New York: HarperOne.
Leonard, T. C. (n.d.). Tasha Cobbs Leonard. Retrieved from YouTube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gE15aoHyll8&feature=share
Lorne Rubis, p. b. (2016). The Respect of “‘ Ï see you…I am here’ . Retrieved from https://www.highlights.lornerubis.com/2016/12/i-see-you