YES! Saturday is Halloween – one of my favorite days of the year. I have always had a ton of fun with Halloween. As a kid, it was perfect – I got to dress up and get free candy. I don’t know of many things that are better for a chubby kid than free candy…
Since I became an adult, I have found a new fascination with Halloween. I just love seeing what I can do to win costume contests. I’ve had my fair share of luck in my life.
I once went as Waldo (from Where’s Waldo) – I donned the red and white stripes, the horn rimmed glasses, and randomly stood amongst people and just waved until I was spotted.
The next year I went as a Christmas tree with one of my best friends – and we weren’t just any type of Christmas trees. Picture those white cylindrical tree-shaped ropes of lights that people put in their yards. Well we climbed into those, then added an additional 600 Christmas lights, tied presents to the bottom, wore tree skirts and green shirts, and had the star on top. To finish it all off, we each had a 100 ft extension cord. I have never sweated so much in my life!
The year after that I wore a giant wrapped gift box (with a bow on top) that had a large tag reading, “To: Women. From: God” (God’s gift to women). Geez my wife thought that was ridiculous (and it was).
For the crème’ de la crème’, we went as Pee Wee’s Playhouse. My good friend was Pee Wee and I went as a life-size replica of Chairry, a large blue talking chair that Pee Wee sat on in his playhouse. This actually managed to win us $300 and a trip to Mexico!
So why in the world do I love Halloween so much? I think it is because I am given the chance to put on a mask. I get to be someone behind that mask that is different than who I am.
I have worn all different types of costumes over the years. I have put on masks. And I’m not just talking about Halloween; I’m talking about everyday life. I wear costumes and masks to hide. I wear masks so that nobody can know who’s hiding behind it and they don’t really know all my insecurities.
Know and trust that God sees past the masks, and sees us for what and who we really are. We are people desperate for His salvation, grace, and love. We are lost without Him. The mask I wear for this world gets in the way of God.
THE MASK I WEAR
Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks-
masks that I’m afraid to take off
and none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me
But don’t be fooled, for God’s sake, don’t be fooled.
I give you the impression that I’m secure
That all is sunny and unruffled with me
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name
and coolness my game,
that the water’s calm
and I’m in command,
and that I need no one.
But don’t believe me. Please!
My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,
My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
But I hide this.
I don’t want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weaknesses
and fear exposing them.
That’s why I frantically create my masks to hide behind.
But I don’t tell you this.
I don’t dare.
I’m afraid to.
I’m afraid you’ll think less of me, that you’ll laugh
and your laugh would kill me.
I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing, that I’m just no good
and you will see this
and reject me.
I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that’s nothing
and nothing of what’s everything, of what’s crying within me.
So when I’m going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I’m saying
Please listen carefully and try to hear
what I’m not saying
Hear what I’d like to say
but what I cannot say.
It will not be easy for you,
long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.
The nearer you approach me
the blinder I may strike back.
Despite what books say of men, I am irrational;
I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
you wonder who I am
you shouldn’t
for I am everyman
and everywoman
who wears a mask.
Don’t be fooled by me.
At least not by the face I wear.
—–Author unknown
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Erik Hatch is a Youth Director at First Lutheran Church in Fargo, ND. Hatch is a graduate of North Dakota State University and sells real estate in his spare time for the Jim Lund Team, Keller Williams. Hatch also is founder and director of Homeless & Hungry. To contact Hatch, email him at ehatch@flcfargo.org.
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