Masked and Unmasked

 

Sunday, Lorna and I attended the worship service at St. John’s by the Lake Anglican Church in Grand Bend, Ontario.  The service was marking Remembrance Day and the service was well put together and had much of the content displayed in their relatively new screens.  I am still getting used to screens in church that are not Rood screens and it was nice to see that the screens were well-used for more than “just” hymn lyrics and prayers.  The videos related to Remembrance Day were very moving.  However, there were technical difficulties with stops and starts which interrupted the flow but I am sure that the kinks will be worked out with time and experience.

Unrelated to all this, was the presence of masks on the service.  We are still required to wear masks during the worship service – with the exception of those leading the service.  As people who were leading the various aspects of the service – preaching, prayers, scripture readings, announcements – they removed their masks so that the congregation could better understand what they were saying.  This was all well and good.  When members of the congregation – including me – happened to be speaking to one another wearing masks it was difficult to always hear them clearly.  As an aside I didn’t have any trouble as my hearing is pretty good despite what Lorna maintains. 

It seems to me that wearing a mask is a form of persona which all of us wear when we are out and about.  The mask will make what we are saying less clear to those we are speaking to.  In a similar but perhaps less obvious way, the persona which each of us wears and presents to others prevents that other person from clearly apprehending who we truly are. 

Let me clarify what a persona actually is.  The term was first used in psychology by Carl Jung.  It is derived from the Latin persona, referring to the masks worn by Etruscan mimes.  The persona is the personality which an individual presents to the outer world which will, to a greater or lesser extent, affect how someone will perceive you.  A priest who is wearing their priestly garb – even just a clergy shirt and collar will be perceived by others in particular ways.  The impact of this perception will be greater or lesser, more or less positive or even negative depending on the attitude of the perceiver towards organized religion in general and clergy in particular.  To see the persona-bearing individual as an individual will necessitate the perceiver seeing through the persona to the individual to enable them to see who they truly are more clearly.  Of course, I don’t believe that any of us see others as they truly are, but we can see others more fully or as fully as possible by being aware of their persona and how that affects our perception of them.  

On your journey, may you be blessed to see others more fully as they truly are – children of God.