Happy Mardi Gras everyone! Yes, it’s Carnival time here at UUCA and around the world. And as they say in New Orleans this time of year, Laissez bon temps roullez!! That’s French for “Let the good times roll!”
This is the time of year when people in Louisiana and other parts of the world parade through the streets in outrageous costumes, dance to jazz music, throw beads and doubloons, and let the good times roll.
Carnival is the highlight of the year for most New Orleaneans. Even Christmas dims in the torch-light of the flambeaus as they march in night-time processions. Carnival is the season from Twelfth Night on January 6 until Mardi Gras, the day before Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras, which is French for Fat Tuesday, is on February 12th this year -- the day after tomorrow.
I always get homesick for New Orleans this time of year. I served the Unitarian Universalist Church there from 1982 till 1988, and during those years I fell in love with “The City That Care Forgot.”
And I always looked forward to Carnival time. About two weeks before Mardi Gras the parades begin to roll, many times three or four a night in different parts of the New Orleans metropolitan area. The parades usually have mythical names like Hercules, Thor, Icarius, Babylon, Endymion. Each parade is composed of marching bands from high schools and colleges throughout the southeast, and of course the exotic, spectacular floats carrying masked members of the various krewes who throw doubloons, beaded necklaces, frisbees, toys, and any number of other objects to the vast and voracious crowds that line the streets.
It’s an unbelievable experience, like going to the biggest party in the world. Most of the parades have themes, sometimes paying tribute to a period of history or personages, but the best parades are those that satire the pompous and powerful, including other krewes.
And in the French Quarter you can see some of the most beautiful, bizarre and brazen costumes you’ve ever imagined. Many are X-Rated -- which is perfectly acceptable in the Quarter on Mardi Gras, as is almost everything, while others are breath-taking in more aesthetic ways.
It’s so crowded in the Quarter that at times you have no choice but to move along with the crowd like a raft in a swiftly moving river. The balconies are full of costumed people throwing beaded necklaces down to the crowds. And as you move farther along Bourbon Street, the costumes become more outrageous and daring. And if the weather is warm -- which it usually is -- there is a proliferation of body parts.
But the masks are the most magnificent sights of all: masks of every size, shape, color, design adorns almost every face. From wild animals to famous actors and actresses, from aliens to marshmallows, the masks are as varied as the human imagination. One Mardi Gras I saw the pope -- or an incredible facsimile -- riding through the Quarter in his popemobile.
Carnival helps me to find the magic in masks. And how about those masks at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony! Weren’t they incredible.
There’s something about putting on a mask that actually changes who we are. Do you remember William Shakespeare’s words in his play, As You Like It?
All the worlds a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts, . . .
Or as the playwright, Sean O’Casey, said, “All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.”
I love going to the movies or live theater and being able to put on the many masks of the characters I see performed. Somewhere deep inside of me I become the hero or villain, the victim or fool. I’m particularly looking forward to taking in the characters from Chalice Theater’s production of “The Music Man.”
We are all actors, aren’t we? At different times in our lives or during different circumstances we wear a wide variety of masks, pretending to be someone we aren’t. While one part of us is putting on these masks, acting out scene after scene, there is a truer spirit that seeks to rip off the masks, revealing the essence of who we are.
It’s the mysterious unconscious that constantly aspires to uncover our truer nature. When we sleep the masks we have donned during the day fall away one by one. A young man wrote of a telling dream he had.
A dream that occurred many times as a child was one that involved masks on my face, hundreds and hundreds of different masks. Each time I pulled one off another remained. I could feel my own face underneath it all, but never could reach it . . .
Perhaps that dream is universal. A part of the human condition is that our consciousness continually layers masks over us while the unconscious, whether through dreams or meditation or play, attempts to break through the facades to release the authentic self.
Persona is the name Carl Jung gave to the masks we wear. The word persona comes from the large carved wooden masks worn by the actors in Greco-Roman theater. The meaning of persona is to sound through, since the masks not only identified the good guys and bad guys but served also as a primitive megaphone to carry the voice of the actors.
Persona is a compromise between what society expects of us and our own personal identity. For instance, if you are a lawyer in a corporate environment or government agency -- and we have a few of those around here -- you probably go to work in a suit and tie if you want to be successful. If you show up in jeans, a sweatshirt, and wearing a ponytail, you may be suspect. But if you’re a construction worker and wear a suit and tie to the job you may be running into some serious problems of another kind.
I have many personas, one of them being a Unitarian Universalist minister. I’m expected to dress a certain way and to act a certain way, and though I push the edge of the envelope from time to time, such as on Mardi Gras, I need to always keep in mind that if I go too far I may be looking for another persona as well as another job.
I have a different persona when I’m with my family. If I keep my minister persona on when I go home my family becomes puzzled and quite annoyed, just as if a lawyer went home and talked only of legal briefs. A part of the maturation process is learning to fit our persona to the appropriate environment.
Or if we do change personas we need to have a good reason for doing so. When Mahatma Gandhi left South Africa and arrived in Bombay to begin his political career, he wore the clothes not of a lawyer or a politician -- both of which he was -- but of an Indian coolie, or porter. He was making a statement that he was adopting a new persona, that of the Indian people themselves.
Many women entering the business world have been confused about what persona they should adopt. Should a woman try and fit into the dominant male system by dressing in suits and acting as masculine as possible? Or should she dare to stand out as a woman who is comfortable with her femininity, wearing dresses and working in a relational style? Or should she try to find some compromise between the two?
Our persona is a kind of shell that surrounds us, protecting us from outside forces, but keeping us isolated as well. We create this shell when we are children needing to protect our fragile egos from hurt and rejection while at the same time trying to convince others of our specialness.
This mask is born out of the reflections of ourselves that we see in the eyes of others, in their faces and words. For instance, if a child is surrounded by parents who see her as beautiful, intelligent and loving, and they consistently communicate those qualities to her, then she will likely grow into an adult who feels beautiful, intelligent and loving. Not only will she feel that way, but the feelings will help to motivate her to actually be that way.
On the other hand, if a child grows up with parents who are always condemning him, telling him how worthless and useless he is, then he will be haunted by a feeling of inadequacy. And unless someone steps into his life to give him another opinion, he will probably live out the prophecy by never succeeding to realize his potential. Each one of us is a mixture of these two scenarios.
Trying to decide which mask to wear, and experimenting with a variety of persona can be as enjoyable as Mardi Gras. Masks are a necessary part of life, and we should enjoy them. But there is a danger as well. The danger is in not being able to take off the mask. How do you tell the difference between what is real and what is persona? How do you know who you are apart from the mask? And how do you keep from having a mask become so ingrained that you can never remove it?
Take for instance Norma Jean Baker? Once that shy young woman put on the mask of Marilyn Monroe the only way she could take it off was to kill herself. Or how about the dysfunctional royal family in Great Britain. I’m certain many of their problems come from having to play out roles that they can’t stand and can’t escape.
It’s particularly difficult to be your true self when you are stigmatized by society. For instance, gay and lesbian people must cope with masks that are forced on their faces by society. Their stereotypes become a mask that is not only difficult but agonizing to remove. But being a part of a supportive congregation like this where they can be accepted fully as the human beings they are can be a vitally helpful and healing experience.
All of us want to deal with people without masks and pretenses, without roles and game playing. But how do we do that? Think how complicated it is. There are a multitude of personas each of us owns, and so when two people meet it’s really a conference of personas all trying to get to know each other.
Since this is the Sunday before Valentine’s Day, let me focus a little on relationships. One reason relationships often fail -- whether they’re gay or straight -- is that the personas are the only ones involved in the relationship. Neither person has ever known the real person behind the masks.
To have a real relationship, to truly love and be loved, we must be able to remove the masks we wear -- or at least to make them transparent -- and to trust that we will be accepted by and accepting of the other. Martin Buber, a Jewish theologian, has written that, All true living is meeting. That means we only truly live when we take off our masks and speak from the center of our being, when we dare to communicate honestly and listen caringly to the words beneath the words spoken, to the Thou of sacredness and respect behind the mask.
In the words of the actress, Tallulah Bankhead, “Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.”
As Unitarian Universalists we attempt to meet each other as authentically as possible. And we attempt to be authentic in our beliefs. Beliefs -- especially when they’re embedded in dogma and creed -- can be a mask for many people, protecting them from the reality of the world and keeping their vision myopic. That’s why we have no dogma or creed in this church, so that people can see the world for themselves, as it is, instead of through a mask of someone else’s beliefs.
We also dare to look beneath the many masks of God. Joseph Campbell tells us that all the images the world religions have of God are masks that humanity places over the ultimate reality none of us can begin to fathom much less name. An essential part of meeting God is to lift off the mask and look into the Great Mystery itself.
I find that my persona as a busy modern minister often keeps me from the very calling I love. Perhaps the same is true of you. What I yearn for is to be a minister and a person who is more than a persona, who is real and authentic.
A deceased colleague and friend of mine, Kit Howell, tells a story about someone who was that kind of person. This story takes place when Kit was 10 years old and his family was attending a Catholic Church [Stark Raving Normal, by Kit Howell, in March, 1996 Quest]. He writes:
We had been waiting in the car for Papa after church and my mother finally sent me in to get him. I went into the sanctuary. Papa wasn’t there. But Father Vega was there with this big, red, beefy parishioner. He was standing over Father Vega, jabbing his finger at him and saying, “Father, there are people in this congregation, important people -- you know who they are -- and they want an air conditioner. I tell you, Father, if this air conditioner issue isn’t resolved, there’s going to be trouble!”
And Father Vega just stood there, his face serene and unchanging. It was one of those moments where everything seemed to freeze, and everyone stood just so, so you could see beyond them. You could see the world they lived in. I looked at the big, red, beefy guy and I could tell his world was full of air conditioners, and power, and cars and church politics. And I looked at Father Vega and through him I saw another world -- a huge and terrifying world where love was real and, like seraphim and angels and Jesus, love walked and talked. I saw a world where spirit guided the flesh, where there was mercy and not sacrifice, where there was justice, where forgiveness and compassion and love were real and concrete and there, in the eyes of Father Vega...
So what happened. Father Vega blessed the big red beefy guy. He touched him on the arm, and he said, “Bless you.” And then after a moment, Father Vega walked on, leaving the big red beefy guy stunned and infected with grace. But the big red beefy guy shook it off, and went on his way. That’s when I understood where blessings come from. They come from that other world -- Father Vega’s world -- the world that is the giving heart of this world.
They fired Father Vega a few months later . . . and we went back to the UU church.
Father Vega was a man who could not only see beyond the masks of others, but he was also transparent to the spirit.
Mardi Gras is a time of celebration and joy. But let us not forget that the day after Fat Tuesday is Ash Wednesday and then forty days of Lent. Just as Mardi Gras is a time to put masks on, to experiment with new roles and ways of being, so Lent is a time to strip away the persona and delve into the deeper self, the heart of life.
Traditionally Christians are expected to deny something for Lent. But I suggest that during this season of Lent each of us takes on something which would help us to strip away masks, whether it be a mask of materialism, of prejudice, or of selfishness. Let us do something that will help us shed the unessential so that we may embrace the essential.
You may want to set aside time each day for prayer or meditation or a long walk or for reading or for listening to music. You may want to say grace before meals. You could make an effort to be welcoming to visitors in our church or to give genuine compliments to family and friends. Why not choose an issue of concern to you locally or nationally and after studying it, you can work on bringing about a change for the better. Or you may want to simply change a habit you have that is destructive for you or your loved ones.
These are just a few suggestions. Take time to reflect on how you would like to take off some of your masks and then see what changes you can make before Easter.
Perhaps when we take off our masks of roles we may find that we are a mask ourselves, a human mask that both hides and channels a deep and wondrous world that we can only glimpse from time to time. Perhaps, staring through our eyes is a power that reveals itself in our every act, a consciousness that is unseen by us as long as our eyes are turned outward instead of inward.
May Carnival be a joyous and generous celebration for you, and may the season of Lent be a time when you search for and meet a transforming power.
Amen.
