‘Tis the last week of October. You knew that already, of course. If nothing else, the much cooler weather here in the northern hemisphere is a giveaway that November is just three days away. If you are among those who still go shopping, you will most likely have seen innumerable signs of Halloween wherever you go. On my recent walk through the lovely neighbourhood, I noticed goblins and ghosts and ghouls roaming amongst rustling autumn leaves and the last roses of summer. Whether we believe it or not, 2020 (the year that wasn’t) will make way for 2021 in sixty-four days.
So, are you getting ready for Halloween? What kind of mask might you be wearing? Oh, how could I forget – this year masks will not be a big deal at Halloween. We have already been halloweened, aka masked, for, what, seven months?? Masking to protect ourselves and others from the Coronavirus, that’s what we have been doing and continue to do. Not with masking tape, but with masks of various designs and colours no one would have imagined prior to this pandemic. PPE of one kind or another has become part of our normal attire. Masks and gloves ad nauseam. Cover-ups everywhere.
What are we hiding behind our fabric masks and in our homes where we hunker down in our bubbles? Do I still see the beautiful you behind your mask? Do I remember the whole of you, or have we become strangers to each other, isolated from each other? I long to see you, the wholeness of you, after these long months. This pandemic has been hard on us in so very many ways, but has it robbed us of our wholeness? Or have we instead allowed this pandemic to strip us of our familiar normal busy way of being so that our true self, our (w)holiness can shine through more clearly these days? As luck, or grace, would have it, this morning I came upon this poem by Bob Holmes.
The Rose After The Hurricane
It's alright to be discombobulated.
It's ok to live in the shambles where everything is blown apart.
For those who live lives of firm certainty cannot know transformation.
It's not until we let go that we can refind ourselves at a deeper level.
Until your life has been blown apart
as you stand on the edge of oblivion,
Until our control falls apart into the chaos of unknowing,
Until our ego melts and burns in the cauldrons of life,
Until we have no whisper of hope left within us
as we stand naked and broken,
our molecules on the cusp of being unmade,
We cannot know in every cell of our being
the grace and love of God that transforms us.
I would say these first stanzas speak loudly to our present lives that offer us 20/20 vision to see ourselves and each other more clearly. Are we paying attention? Bob Holmes concludes his poem with these lines:
Being in being
Woven with eternal threads
of burning, living, light
where we become
Something we cannot fathom.
Such is the grace of God
that unmakes us to make us whole.
If you live in the northern hemisphere, why not go out among the trees to witness their beauty, their wholeness shining through in their golden dying leaves and ponder how you might, “become something [you] cannot fathom.” Perhaps then, quite unexpectedly, you might be led to look at yourself in the mirror to gauge how during these months, slowly, and painfully, your (w)holiness is being unmasked.
What is (w)holiness? Might I suggest (w)holiness = wholeness + holiness. Yes, of course, we are all painfully aware of being a mix of beauty and brokenness, of love and lies, of holiness and hiddenness. Thinking about unmasking (w)holiness takes me back to Brenè Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are in which she, “explores how to cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection to embrace [one’s] imperfections and to recognize that you are enough.” (goodreads.com) Can we reach a point where we stop hiding behind masks and instead choose to embrace our enoughness, our wholeness our (w)holiness? As Bob Holmes concludes his poem, “Such is the grace of God that unmakes us to make us whole.”
- Sister Magdalena Vogt, cps
Lord,
Help us take off our masks,
the ones we wear to hide
from others and ourselves,
the person you made each of us to be …
Unmask us all, Lord,
Help us find the hidden, human beauty,
under costumes, ‘neath our masks,
in everyone around us,
beginning with ourselves
and help us, Lord,
to love each one we find …
-A. Fleming (Excerpt: Morning Prayer, 27 Oct. 2020; A Concord Pastor Comments)