I enjoy role playing, being in plays, wearing a disguise. It’s fun to be free by not being yourself. Like the tv show where the boss dresses up as someone else, it can be enlightening and/or revealing to move among the “people” so to speak and learn what they might say about you that they would not say to you.
I know that God uses disguises all the time. At any given time the Sacred comes to us as a puppy, a child, a tree, a flower, a beautiful sunset, a moment, a prayer, a Muslim, a Hindu, even maybe an Atheist. The Sacred is anywhere and everywhere so none of the above are far fetched. I have seen the Sacred in the face of a mentally ill person and in an intellectually disabled person. In the shining smile of my minister daughter and in the wise face of my 94 year old aunt. If this is true, and I am sure it is, then I have to think of a couple of things.
First, do I say to God’s face the same things I say about God? What I mean is am I honest about what my life says as opposed to what my heart or prayers say? Do I talk to the world with my life the way I think I do? It is supposed to match you know, who I am and how I act. I confess, that is hard work and I have to work at that every day.
The second thing to think about is am I looking for God in all the right places? Am I looking for the Sacred everywhere? In the words my wife says to me? In the faces of my college students? In the face of a person I have no real use for? In the glory of the new day? Paula D’Arcy says, “God comes to us disguised as our lives”. I think she is right. Mother Theresa said she could work with the poor of India only because she saw “the face of the Suffering Christ” in each and every face.
As I have studied and thought, over and over again I hear the word awareness. Now as a martial arts instructor, I teach this every day, to be aware of surroundings, your opponent, of yourself. I need to live more aware in the spiritual realm…..seeing truly that the Sacred is disguised as my life. If I am aware, truly aware, then I will see Her in all that is around me. And, like I read a day or two ago, be able to see that the life I always wanted, I already have and that I need to pay more attention to it.
TMM