Behind the Mask

By Bobby Neal Winters

Everybody is broken.

Everybody.

That is what I’ve learned.

We build a persona. A persona is a mask that we put on to deal with others. I said that we build a persona, and we do, but we often don’t realize it at the time.  A lot of people, maybe most, are not aware that’s what they are doing. They are not aware how important it is.  And their parents aren’t either.

Oh, our mothers are worried about what people will think.  They will make us comb our hair and brush our teeth.  They will tell us to wear clean underwear so that if we are in an accident we won’t shock the nurses. (The nurses with whom I am acquainted don’t shock that easily.)  But most moms are not consciously working to help their children create personas.

Regardless of that, some people are quite good at it, and those are the people who are running the world.  I looked at the previous sentence and thought about it a while.  It doesn’t quite get it: There are people who have carefully crafted personas who’ve been kicked to the curb as far as running the world is concerned; there may be a few folks turning the tiller of the world who are just naturals; but by at large the folks at the top are very careful about what they let people see.

Given that, let’s look back at the first part of this column: Everybody is broken.

This includes the people in power.  In my darker moments, I think maybe especially the people in power.  I should probably stop listening to the news.

Our brokenness can be an asset.

Pain is a path that goes to everyone’s house.

We can always connect through pain.

Everyone has lost a parent, has lost a sibling, has lost a pet.  Everyone has been fired, has failed a test, has lost a love.  We may speak different languages, but everyone can cry.

Many people craft personas that cover all that up.  They constantly radiate joy.  And God bless them for it, because they can spread joy.

For a moment.

I’m a fan of the movie “Inside Out.”  The girl in the movie has all these (joy, sadness, anger, disgust) emotions running around in her head, but joy dominates.  Joy will not let sadness hold the stage.

But there are times when sadness is appropriate.  There are times when sadness must hold the stage.

There are at least two points in the Bible where men who had very carefully created personas, let sadness take the stage.  When Joseph was testing his brothers, he let the mask slip and called out, “Is my father still alive?”  When David’s son Absalom had been trying to overthrow him but was killed, David let his mask slip and called out, “Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son.”

It makes people uncomfortable when authority figures do that.  The raw emotion is too much. It’s as if the emotion gets amplified by the mask itself.  It acts as a lens instead of a shade.

But the authority figures are broken too.  We forget that, but we shouldn’t. Ever.

Sometimes it is their brokenness that drives them to seek authority over others.  This usually isn’t good.

The best use their brokenness as a way to connect to others, as a way to serve others, as a way to serve God.

The brokenness serves as a way to connect with God.

Oscar Wilde was a brilliant man, famous for his wit.  He had a carefully crafted persona that came apart.  Of all the things he said, of all the things he wrote, one bit is fit for scripture:

Ah! happy they whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!

How else may man make straight his plan

And cleanse his soul from Sin?

How else but through a broken heart

May Lord Christ enter in?

We can connect with Christ, we can connect with each other through our brokenness. 

Everybody is connected, because everyone is broken.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like'' the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube. )