The masks we wear

It’s not every day your minister Edward Viljoen walks on stage in an Oscar the Grouch costume – except of course around Halloween time, and then anything is fair game! Even though the costume was goofy, the message was serious– it was all about the disguises and masks we wear because…. Well, basically, we don’t want the world to see the real us.  We hide behind our masks because we worry we aren’t good enough just as we are. We put on a disguise because we want to impress, be liked, be accepted, be loved. All the while forgetting that the real us, the real me, the real you, is something beautiful and sacred and that when we share that, and are willing to simply be ourselves… why then magic happens – real connections are made, we can be touched and touch each other’s hearts and humanity.  In Edward’s words, “We have an assignment to figure out how to live our lives from the inside out

To bring what is under the disguise out into the open

To live from the awareness that there is something powerful in every one of us”.

So let’s have fun this Halloween, but when we take off our silly costumes, our scary masks, our ghoulishly delightful disguises, let’s remember to take off all those other masks we think we need too, and just be… ourselves. Who knows what treats might lie in store for us?