Happy Halloween

I remember going trick-or-treating with my brother (with my father watching us from a distance) and waiting for folks to guess who we were before they would give us the candy we were so desperate for. One year a neighbor boy who shared my name came to a house the same time as my brother and I The woman at the door, handing out candy, guessed his name, but I thought she meant me, so I pulled my mask off, which really ticked off my brother because once I was revealed, he was too.

I'm still wearing masks, but not ones I can pull off my face so easily. The masks I wear these days aren't made of latex or plastic, but they are made in my head as I try to be who I imagine others want me to be. There's no wholeness there. In the Fantastiks, El Gallo (the Narrator) says we should always keep our masks on, but I disagree.

The first stop on this journey to Freedom is a place where I can take off my masks.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE: Who am I anyway, Am I my resume? That is a picture of a person I don't know...(A Chorus Line)

The first mask, of many, is to take off the religious mask, that is the conservative, nearly fundamentalist mask formed when I was in college and seminary. Throughout the past thirty-two years I have thought my interests were best served by wearing this mask, but I have always been conflicted about this. I don't believe everything taught by conservatives
My compassion has made me question a lot of things. Just two for the moment: Can a loving God condemn people to hell because they don't know Jesus Christ, and they've never had a real opportunity to meet him? Can God send gay men and lesbians to hell because they love persons of the same gender? It made me sick to think of the God of love doing that; God would not be a loving God at all, nor would such a God be worthy of worship.

Enough for the moment.
Enjoy the day. It's all we have -- for now.