I am again in that familiar, desolate, empty space that I inhabit sometimes. It is a dry feeling, a tired feeling, a worn out, pushed to the edge, frustrated feeling. It saps me of any motivation I have. It’s draining. It’s what you’d imagine a leaf feels like when it is hanging onto its stem by the last fibers that have any vestiges of life left in them. And when I sat down (finally) to discuss it all with the Lord, I realized I could put words to a small part of it. I am feeling that our lives are contrived.
Sometimes, I find myself around fake tans, fake hair, faces caked with makeup, fake bodies, fake personalities, fake laughs, fake emotion, fake advice, fake contentment, even fake eyelashes. And as I sit and fake laugh at another stupid joke about something that doesn’t matter at all in real life, I realize that that is the problem-real life isn't what we are talking about.
Here’s Scenario 1. We go to a tanning salon and pay X dollars to sit in a booth for 3 hours where a contrived high wattage light shoots rays into our skin and cooks us. We then go to Wal-Mart and buy touch up spray for X more dollars so we can cover up and streaks or spots that the lightbulb didn’t catch. We do all this so that people think we actually spent 3 hours outside.
Scenario 2. We go to a gym that has air conditioning, TV’s and machines so that we can exercise and burn off calories that we ingest. Those same calories are of a contrived sort, that have been chemically altered to have less fat, less sugar, less something. So we change the molecular makeup of food so we can eat more of the food so that we can work out and get rid of the food so it looks like we don’t eat the food.
Scenario 3. Girls spend hours with a comb, hairspray, blow dryers, curlers, curling irons, straighteners, gel, pins, clips, to get a “windblown” look so people will think they stuck their head out of a car window for 3 seconds.
I have so many more examples but they are so rude that I think I'll leave them out. This is me being considerate. Cue applause.
Anyway, the little worm that keeps digging its way to my heart and striking it at the core is just that. We are contrived. Our entire lives are contrived. The food we eat and the clothes we wear. The words we say, the happiness we look for. The personas we try to set forth are made up. They don’t exist. We live how we want and then cover up the results that we don’t like to make people believe certain things. And when they see that, they feel guilty their own lives don’t look that way and get some cover up for themselves as well. After all, as C.S. Lewis says in Till We Have Faces, “Don’t you think the things people are most ashamed of are the things they can’t help?” So we trick each other and die on the inside and convince everyone on the outside that we are alive and well, thank you very much. Just don’t dig around. Accept the walls and go about your way, because I’m not sure they’ll stand up to investigatory knocks. They’re about to fall in on me anyway.
Maybe C.S. Lewis was closer than he knew (actually, he probably knew, the man was incredibly wise). We are ashamed of something. I can even attest to it. Sometimes I compare myself to others and I feel a twinge of shame that my stomach is not as flat, my legs not as slender, my hair not as shiny, my face not as beautiful. We are ashamed life does not come that easy, and that we are caught in the disconnect of knowing our goal and being unable to live up to it. We realize we weren't meant to stay in metal and concrete cages all day, we realize we weren't meant to eat manufactured crap, we realize we weren't meant to pretend, we realize we weren't meant to have unnatural desires that do not match up with the life we are called to. We know. We understand. We know that love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control are what we are called to and made for. We realize that we are called to so much more. And what this "so much more" looks like, I don't know. I suppose its different for everyone. But I know what we are not called to. We are not called to fake. We are not called to cover up. We are not called to cheap fixes and pretending and lies. We are called to truth and to be set free. We are called to be real. To be where we are on our journey, to be striving, not set. To be clinging to Jesus, not under control.
Besides, I like those crazy people better. There's encouragement and comfort in knowing that you aren't the only one.
So I guess I just wrote this because God has me searching for what being intentional and being real looks like in my life. And hopefully, He has other people looking for it as well. It'd be nice to have some company.
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