Behind the Mask

We walk behind invisible masks.

It’s safer and therefore more comfortable that way.

Each of us has secrets we try to disguise.

Michael Jackson knew it well, even in addressing another:

            All along I knew you were

            a phony girl

            you sit behind the mask

            and you control your world

            So take off the mask so

            I can see your face.

But an honest face can tell the truth.

We need masks to disguise the truth.

The truth of our insecurities, pretenses, secrets of the heart, depression.

Maybe it’s especially the teenager who dons the masks,

tightly guarding what cannot safely be shared with others,

tightly protecting self from hurts, misunderstanding, taunts, humiliation.

There’s a wall in a local Christian high school that gives a glimpse of what’s often behind the mask.

It’s called the “Speak Wall.”

It started in a chapel service where 18 students volunteered as guinea pigs.

They shared with fellow students what they had not shared before:

the fear of ugliness

the fear of not being cool enough

the ongoing grief for a lost father

loneliness

worry about the future

and other preoccupations that disturb young lives.

A hallway wall was dedicated as an invitation to other students to drop their mask.

It soon began to fill up. 

Notes, signed and unsigned, about repeated suicide attempts. 

A note about scars, empty pill bottles, and a tear-soaked pillow. 

A note about missing the love of a good family. 

A note about the pain of lost childhood innocence. 

A note with the question: “Why did God give me diabetes?” 

Another: “I need to break my addictions.”

Another: “I’m pretentious.” 

Another: “I’m covered by a blanket of regret.”

Among these poignant and disturbing notes, student responses of understanding, encouragement, sharing, promising prayer.

Within the school, this hallway has become a kind of sacred ground. 

Students and staff approach it in silence, then stop to read.

Then they go on to classrooms, the gym, the locker room. 

But there’s a difference now. 

There’s more awareness of the other, a growing sensitivity, a greater readiness to reach out, an increasing feeling of acceptance.

Is it possible that school can become a safe place to drop the mask?

And home too?

And church?