All the World’s Your Stage

    
    “All the world's a stage,” Shakespeare penned the beginning of his play As You Like It. Also known as The Seven Ages of Man, this was his commentary on the various roles and masks we wear throughout our lives. “All the men and women are merely players,” Shakespeare continued. “They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts... “

    In ancient Greece, stage actors wore masks to ensure the audience could clearly see their facial expressions. This allowed spectators to distinguish between characters and made the story's theme—comedy or tragedy—clear to them.

The pressure to conform to societal expectations is a reality we all face. This is reflected in the popularity of masquerade balls and costume parties, where people find freedom behind a mask and behave differently than their usual selves.

We learn survival skills as children, practicing how to present ourselves to gain affirmation and approval from family, church, and society. In recent years, face-to-face communication has retreated behind our smartphones, changing how we connect. These skills we accept as our identity. And we will fight fiercely protect less someone get a peek behind the mask at our true identity.

Today, we craft electronic personas on social media instead of physical masks. Yet, under stress or opportunity, our true identity emerges. Getting behind the wheel of a one-ton SUV often reveals our authentic character.

A woman in a black SUV had been tailgating another driver who was carefully following the speed limit on a residential street. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he could see that the woman was very distressed.

When the light at the intersection turned yellow, instead of accelerating through, he chose to stop at the crosswalk where people were waiting to cross. Now, the woman was pounding on her steering wheel, yelling, and blasting her horn.

The woman was in mid-rant when a police officer approached from the driver's side of her car and tapped on the window. After exchanging words with the officer, she was ordered to exit her car and place her hands on the hood.

The woman was handcuffed and given a chauffeured ride to the local police station. Despite her protests of innocence, she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and put in a holding cell. She waited in the cell for two hours until her release. She retrieved her personal belongings at the booking desk, where the arresting officer awaited her.

"I'm very sorry for this mistake, ma’am," he said. "I had been following you for a while – you were honking your horn, gesturing at the driver in front of you, and cursing up a blue streak.

“While checking your car tag, I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do' and 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper stickers, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk."

He paused for a moment, "Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."

Behind the Mask

To illustrate this idea with some figures, a consumer study conducted by Deloitte revealed that Americans checked their smartphones 8 billion times daily in 2014. Individuals aged eighteen to twenty-four looked at their phones an average of 74 times per day. Americans aged 25 to 34 checked their devices 50 times daily, while those aged 35 and older checked their devices about 35 times a day.

The electronic masks we wear on social media allow that wounded, angry part of us to flow through our fingers on the keyboard.

However, apart from online personas, many of the God-squad people I know have become proficient at deception and duplicity in secular and religious settings. Having grown up in a church environment, I experienced the tremendous pressure to wear masks of piety and spirituality to remain a member in good standing of the God-squad. Some of us have been conditioned to maintain our masks, layering false humility in church rituals and performances.

Church rituals teach us how to wear religious masks, performing for an audience of fellow believers. We create masks for family, friends, and colleagues, shaping our service to match the religious persona expected of us, especially if we take on ministry roles.

Given all these tendencies to mask ourselves, we might ask: what does it take to give us the courage to venture out into the world with genuineness?

Over the years, I have had the privilege of rubbing elbows with some impressive servants of God. However, what I truly admired was their consistent character. It was not always displayed in the glare of performance; instead, I observed it most during their daily interactions with family, often in the crucible of pain and disappointment.

As I See It, these men and women’s identities were revealed when they thought no one was watching... but we were.

 (Please leave a comment and your own experience.)

 

(An excerpt from my upcoming book) 

BREAKTHROUGH: Finding Your God-Given Identity And Enjoying The Life. 

 

Do Not Be Deceived - Part 2 – Emperor Nero

Ever trusted a history book that LIED to your face?

 I've always enjoyed a good conspiracy tale, and it seems to me that there’s usually an element of truth mixed with fiction in every one.

Living in a world where the Internet is overrun with fact and fiction, I'm often astounded by the amount of historical fiction and fabrication I encountered throughout my public and religious education.

Emperor Nero - No Fiddling Around

It's July 64 AD. Rome is burning. The fire starts in shops near the Circus Maximus. Homes and businesses turn to ash, and thousands lose everything overnight. After six days under partial control, flames reignite for three more. Nearly three-quarters of the city is destroyed.

History claims that Nero stood on a tower, violin in hand, playing as his city burned.According to the Roman historian Tacitus (c. AD 56 – c. AD 120), and later Christian tradition, the Emperor blamed the devastation on the Christian community after they accused him of being the Antichrist. However, Tacitus was only 12 years old when Nero committed suicide in 68 AD.

 In reality, Nero was 35 miles from Rome when the fire began. Records say he rushed back, opened his gardens to homeless Romans, and funded relief from his treasury.

 Nero could not have played the violin—the instrument was not invented for another thousand years. Comparing this myth to Julius Caesar tweeting at his assassination shows its impossibility.

 The story of “Nero fiddling while the city burned” first emerged about 150 years after Nero’s death, described by Cassius Dio, who based his account on sources that despised Nero. 
 Yet our textbooks repeat the story, treating Nero’s fiddle as historical fact and perpetuating the myth. For example, as one source noted, “His enemies couldn’t destroy him while alive, so they waited until he died. Then they pinned upon him the worst crime in Roman history.” (Forbidden Vaults: 31 Historical Myths That Turned Out to Be Lies.)

 Ultimately, sometimes those myths have been engineered by governments, journalists, and kings who need you to believe them. History didn't get it wrong. Someone made sure you did... in your history books. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/

A Trip To the Edge

     The Actor's Nightmare is a one-act comic play by Christopher Durang about an accountant named George Spelvin, who, inexplicably, awakens backstage of a theater. George finds himself confused about his surroundings, questioning whether he even belongs on stage. Immediately, he is mistaken for an actor's understudy who has fallen ill, throwing him into a role for which he feels completely unprepared.

Suddenly, George is thrust onstage, expected to perform portions of several short plays—none of which he knows the lines for. He struggles to discover which play and which character he is supposed to be without the benefit of a single rehearsal. Meanwhile, the other actors refer to him by various names, and the play shifts without warning among scenes from Private Lives, Hamlet, Checkmate, and A Man for All Seasons.

George faces constant demands from the other actors to change costumes right on stage. At one point, he finds himself delivering a desperate monologue to God, clad only in his underwear. Ultimately, George is placed with his head on a chopping block, reciting any lines he can remember. As the executioner's axe falls, the stage goes black, leaving him bewildered and lost.

Can you relate to George? Does your life sometimes feel as though you’ve arrived twenty minutes late to someone else’s movie? Instead of being the main character, do you feel more like a supporting actor caught in a cascade of unexpected events—some wonderful, many difficult, or perhaps a confusing blend of both?

For lack of a better explanation, what kinds of stage directions is your heart giving about who you are and why you keep moving forward in life’s unfolding drama? Do you assure yourself that you are capable and part of a skilled cast? Or are you harsh with yourself and those around you—family, friends, or colleagues? Do you ever feel certain that others are working against you?

If you identify as a Christ-follower, do you find yourself struggling between what religious teachings expect of you and how you actually respond when your values and opinions are put to the test?

Journey to Hope

My upcoming book, Breakthrough: Finding Your God-Given Identity and Enjoying the Life He Offers You, did not begin from my own quest for spiritual or emotional transformation. Instead, it began with a search to understand the confusion and turmoil that can follow when a Christ-follower dies by suicide.

The son of a local pastor and his wife was raised in a Christian home. He was not only a member of his parents' church but also played guitar, sang, and performed at area coffee houses while sharing his faith with curious listeners. To outsiders, he was a happy young man walking into a bright future.

In the United States, someone takes their own life every sixteen minutes. Growing up within Bible-
believing Christianity, I was taught that Jesus was the answer to every challenge and struggle. The self-destruction of a committed believer left me with questions I could not ignore.

Common Coping

Current CDC data shows that 12.8 million American adults have seriously considered suicide, while 3.7 million have made plans and 1.5 million have attempted it. This means that for every person who attempts suicide, about seven others experience these thoughts without acting. What leads two-thirds of those with suicidal ideation to never take action?

Unfortunately, research finds that over half of those who experience suicidal thoughts do not share them with anyone. One study found that 31% of therapy patients admitted to concealing such thoughts from their therapists. In a Veterans Affairs study, 72% of patients who died by suicide had never reported their thoughts.

A Trip to the Edge

As I reflected on why another Christian might consider so final a decision, I was brought back to my own journey to the edge of suicide years earlier. Someone I cherished and hoped to spend my life with betrayed both my son and me. The situation was made more painful by the fact that her actions involved someone I had trusted as my best friend.

Working at the same Christian ministry as the person involved made daily life tense. Some mornings, I faced overwhelming anger knowing this former friend now lived in my home and was spending time with my son. Only God's grace kept me from letting those thoughts lead to action.

Feelings of self-pity and blame became constant companions. I managed to sleep, but was left with anxiety and depression during my waking hours. Anger toward my betrayers boiled under the surface as I questioned my own judgment for being so trusting.

One evening, I sat on the edge of my bed, holding a prescription bottle of sleeping pills. Pouring the pills into my palm, I thought, I just want the pain to stop. Though I was raised to believe suicide was an unforgivable sin, the pain now seemed unbearable. In that moment, I understood the despair that drives others to wish for an end to hurt and fear.

Who would miss you? The inner voice seemed so rational. You can prove your point. She wants you out of her life anyway.

I had turned inward and readied my own self-destructive thoughts, feeling justified in my pain. But had I aimed these feelings at my offenders, or at myself? Ultimately, any action would have resulted in a mortal wound to me alone.

As devastating as this experience was, it echoed a much earlier event that changed my life. As a child, I was deeply betrayed by an adult I trusted, planting the sense of unworthiness within me. As an adult, marital betrayal nurtured those seeds, leaving me feeling undeserving and abandoned in God's eyes. The crisis fed a fragile identity built on old lies.

Today, As I See It, I can say, like that Garth Brooks song, "Thank God for Unanswered Prayers." The passage of time revealed God’s wisdom regarding revenge versus forgiveness.

That I’ll let you in on later.

 (Please leave a comment and your own experience.)

 

(An excerpt from my upcoming book) 

BREAKTHROUGH: Finding Your God-Given Identity And Enjoying The Life. 

 

 Do Not Be Deceived -  Part 1 - Napoleon 

Ever trusted a history book that LIED to your face?

In a world where the Internet is an incredible resource of fact and fiction, it astounds me at the amount of historical fiction and fabrications foisted upon me in my Public and religious educational experience.

Napoleon - The Little Man Who Wanted to Rule Europe 

Imagine the most feared military commander on Earth. He was motivated and a brilliant tactician on the battlefield. He rides his white horse in front of 100,000 French troops along the coast, ready to attack the British across the English Channel. 

Britain is terrified . . . how could they hope to defeat an unstoppable army and the victory-hungry Napoleon? They decided on trickery in the form of rumor.

They hired a cartoonist, James Gilray, already on the British government payroll, who started painting the French Emperor as a tiny raging toddler in an oversized military hat, they called Little Bonnie (boney from Bonepart). Readers of the papers laughed. Fear took a backseat to the ridicule.

However, a measurement accurately recorded in French military records long before British records stated that Bonaparte was, in fact, 5 feet 7 inches tall, the height of the average Frenchman at the time. However, the Britts continued to report the General's height as 5 feet, 2 inches. No one corrected it.

Napoleon eventually admitted that Gilray's cartoons were more lethal to his reputation than a DOZEN generals. Turns out not beating the Frenchman on the battlefield was better accomplished by shrinking him in people's imagination.  

 I have always loved hearing a good conspiracy tale. However, AS I SEE IT, behind each one of them is some element of truth mingled with the fiction. 

"Sometimes those myths have been engineered by governments, journalists, and kings, who need you to believe them. History didn't get it wrong. Someone made sure you did . . . in your history books." https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/

 

Who Makes Up Your Movie?

 'As a rule, adversity reveals genius and prosperity hides it.' ~ Horace, famous Roman poet and philosopher,

 In my last creative lollygagging, I asked what was the Title of Your Life movie.  

When I took my wife to the first of the movie in The Hobbit trillogy, she was not aware this wasn't a stand-alone telling for Tolken's hero Biblbo Baggins. As the last few frames showed the Smog's dragon eye open among the cascading of gold coins. Normally not a person to give a vocal outburst in the theater, the "to be continued!" set her off. "What! What do you mean CONTINUED! Oh, come on! Now how long to I have to wait for the rest of story."

So, I wonder if your life movie would suddenly pause at this moment, what would your family and friends be yelling at the screen. How passionate would they about you life story and the other characters that swirl about you and movtivate your decisions and actions? 

Who Makes Up the Cast of Your Movie 

Pretend you are a screenwriter fleshing out an outline of a new movie plot about your life. You have been tasked with casting the movie. This short exercise works to put your life and goals in perspective. This kind of self-reflection will help you check on the state of your life. Here are some questions to get you started.

1. How do you describe yourself as the main character?

Typically, we view ourselves based on how others see us, or we adopt too simple a concept of ourselves. Would there be a gap between how others see you and how you see yourself? How difficult would it be to close that gap? Can you bring other overlooked traits and talents to the forefront to expand your self-image?

2. What other characters play essential roles in your story?

Who has been or is currently pivotal for your story? Who are the steady influences, supports, or sources of frustrations or challenges? Is it time to change some of these relationships?

3. What is the core conflict in your life?

Every story has conflict, as does life. Looking back, is there a core conflict that has lingered and runs like a thread through your life? It may be internal, external, or both. It is likely something you continue to struggle with.

4. What is the main character’s central quest or goal?

It is that goal that shapes who you are and who you want to be.

5. Can you identify the obstacles that get in the way of reaching your goal?

You may have a lengthy list of things that get in your way of succeeding but settle on one or two of the big ones.

6. Who do you need to overcome these obstacles?

What do you need inside or outside yourself to succeed?

• Frodo had Gandalf and Samwise Gamgee.
• Sherlock Holmes had Dr Watson.
• Batman had Alfred and Robin.
• The Lone Ranger had Tonto.
• Captain Kirk had Bones and Spock.

7. How do you want your story to end

While life is never certain, it is essential to have control over the ending of your story. You and only you can make the decisions and choices about where your life will go, what will happen to your hero, even if those choices seem at times so limited.

Is Your Hero Ready?

As the hero in your own story, you may not be convinced you are up to the task. Perhaps you, like I did for years, thought that I was nothing more than a slave to others' actions and circumstances. A doctor's notice about a serious illness, a career crisis, family turmoil, or just plain evil people can shake your identity that seems to be hanging on by a thread.

Just as a pastor friend and his wife were looking forward to retirement, she suddenly had a massive stroke which paralyzed one side of her body. Their plans seemed stuck on pause as they faced daunting uncertainty. I empathized, at least from the husband's perspective, the insecurity about his wife's future. I had lost a spouse to a rapidly progressing frontotemporal dementia. In a matter of weeks there were personality changes, mood swings, constant schedule of medical tests, and the uncertain confidence from health professionals. 

While still serving a very supportive church congregation, he is a hero to both his congregation and the community. He would have gladly bypassed the health and recover challenges they are dealing with. However, Daddy God knew he was the man for the lead role of his life movie.

Jesus Christ told his disciples they were chosen by Daddy God for a fruitful life outcome. "You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.”

No Second Guessing

 

What Is the Title of Your Life Movie?

Imagine your life as a movie. What would be its title? Where would your name appear in the credits? Would you be listed in the volume of contributors who worked behind the scenes so others could walk the red carpet?

These questions prompt a deep self-reflection, inviting you to explore your role in the grand production of life.

How you answer those questions is very revealing about your identity.

A Background Actor

Also known as an extra, you don't feel you are playing a crucial role but only providing the backdrop for other characters. Sometimes you feel your contributions are subtle, but not necessary to the premise of your movie.

Just Supporting Cast

You are only an actor who provides emotional support to the lead characters. You give others depth and context. You may feel you provide comic relief or tension to others.

Movie Costar

More than a supporting role, do you consider yourself a costar to others, such as a spouse, children, or even God? You may not have much of a voice and less screen time than others. Yet you know how to create context and atmosphere in your life story.

Movie Star

Do you consider yourself the one in your movie who makes the decisions and responds to the obstacles and challenges in your film?

Chose a Role

So... the question remains, what role do you have? Does it differ from the role you think you should have? And what name that resonates in your character?  Instead of being the lead character in your own story, you think of yourself as a bit player, like a victim tossed overboard in the prop-wash of another person's history.

Your Inner Name

This is your true self that reflects your deepest identity and values. It's the name that you might not even be aware of, but it's there, shaping your thoughts and actions.

The inner name you call yourself is the identity you have constructed for yourself based on your life experiences, pressures, and traumas.  It's the name you called yourself in childhood, the one with a story behind it, and currently plays a significant role in shaping you as a person. 

For example, your emotional flashbacks may be the reason for some unpredictable or erratic moods and reactions to people. Perhaps your anger suddenly boils over, and you aren't sure why. Or, you have an obsessive need to be a people-pleaser to determine your self-worth. Reliving scenes of failure remind you how futile it is to consider goals that might brighten your future. 

 In the Matrix, Thomas, an average, boring computer programmer, learns his actual name is Neo. A stranger confronts him with the truth that reality is not what he'd been experiencing on a daily basis. The small existence swaddling him most of his life was actually the wool "pulled over your eyes to keep you from seeing the truth.”

What would you do if approached by the mysterious Morpheus with the haunting truth that you "were born into a prison you can’t smell or taste or touch?” Holding out the two pills, would you choose the blue pill and “wake up in your bed tomorrow and continue to believe what your current life dictates?" Or would you have the courage to take the red pill, discover who you were created to be, and "see how far (the adventure goes) down the rabbit hole?” 

Perhaps like Neo, you are asking, "I just wish I knew what I am supposed to do."

Would knowing what role you're destined to play be helpful? Could there be a reality beyond your chosen identity and that face reflecting back at you in the mirror? Do you find yourself asking this question:

• Who am I?

• What does God want of me?

• Why am I here?

What is your Identity? 

Not your given name but the name you call yourself. Your life story played a significant role in shaping your identity, with all its twists and turns. If you dare the journey, let's explore your story, and you will discover there's a much bigger role you have been cast to play.

Voices . . .  

        She stood, palms down, absorbing the cold from the bridge's rough, weathered concrete. Looking down at her fingers, she admired the job she had done on her own manicure. The last time, she thought. At least I did that right!

        The afternoon sun warmed her face but could not penetrate the icy turmoil swirling in her soul. Anguished thoughts tumbled around in her head. Accusing voices screamed in defiance of the encouraging words from a man who had proposed days earlier, a man who wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

        If he only knew you, a dark emotion pushed itself forward, the REAL you! Who would want to be with YOU?

        There is only one ANSWER! another voice spat at her.

        She shuddered, her slender frame defying the warmth of the sun. This answer was her only option — an escape — one she’d toyed with most of her 19 years.

        That's why she was here on this bridge. What she thought of herself, what others must think of her, had to stop!

        The concrete scraped her knees as she pulled herself up on the waist-high wall, but she didn't feel the pain. Then, finally, a greater pain tugged her to the ledge. She didn't feel any other emotion, just relief.

        A slight breeze nudged her backward from the rail, encouraging life. Twelve stories below, traffic moved through their usual afternoon pattern, unaware that a life hung in the balance above them.

        She thought, They won’t miss me, as she watched the swirl of ordinary people below.

        No one will miss you, growled that dark emotion as she stepped out.

        Gravity took over. 

Suicide Bridge

        Residents refer to it as the Suicide Bridge. Unfortunately, there is no reliable estimate for how many people have jumped since it opened in 1928. Folks who live and work near here are no longer stunned to hear another person has opted out of life by leaping to their death. Over the last decade, at least 17 people have taken the plunge from Vista Bridge, just west of downtown Portland.

         What was going through their minds? What penetrated the heart of a newly engaged young woman to cause her to hurl herself violently out of this life into eternity? Or a forty-year-old man off the same bridge five months later? Then, a 15-year-old girl who took the plunge from Suicide Bridge less than a month after that. 

         Desperation has a way of painting a distorted reality. Bright hues of one's value are stained by the grays and blacks of lies and emotional wounds of the past.

        Suicide is a growing public health crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control, Suicide is rarely caused by a single circumstance or event. They break it down to Individual, Relationship, Community, and Societal Risk Factors. The National Institute of Mental Health reports it's the 11th-leading cause of death overall, with more than 48,000 suicides in 2021 in the U.S. It's the second-leading cause of death for people 10–14 and 25–34, and the third-leading cause of death for people 15–24.

        Voluntary death is not limited to those of lower intelligence or the talentless, among famous figures who committed suicide: Sigmund Freud, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Hannibal, Nero, Virginia Wolf, Adolf Hitler, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Vincent van Gogh, Jack London, Dylan Thomas, Judy Garland, Rudolph Hess, Pontius Pilate, Socrates, and possibly Tchaikovsky, and Robin Williams.

Addressing the Voices

         However, effective suicide prevention starts well before the self-destructive individual ever steps onto that bridge. It starts with us and the emotional support systems we create. When the person in pain discovers a different reality from the life they are living, a spark of hope will lead them away from the edge, to lay down the gun, to avoid driving into a tree, or to remove the cap of the prescription bottle.

        What the mental conversations swirling in the heart of the person teetering on the edge of self-harm? What are the seductive voices of circumstances and self-worth that convince the suicidal they aren’t worthy of taking another breath? For the person at the point of suicide, a fractured identity — that name they call themselves — is often justifying the rationality of self-destruction. Because of the layers of pain and disappointment, it seems to make sense.

        Slowing down the avalanche toward suicide starts with unmasking this identity. However, as I learned in my own personal, painful journey, it is also the first step in slowing the free fall of damaged relationships and destructive habits. Recall of the trauma and later events that reinforce its message may bring identification of the name. Still, without hope of a different tomorrow, the tumble toward self-destruction continues.

        Regardless of the cause, the voices that say suicide is the answer must be contested and rebutted. Yet it is likely more than logic to talk someone out of their plan of self-destruction. Beneath the circumstances which have made suicide a reasonable alternative to the pain is a deep hunger – a heart’s cry for real, lasting change.

        When you discover you have a different name — an identity and self-worth not defined by your past, parents, or peers — a glimmer of hope is introduced into the shadows of desperation. The One who created you — the God who held you in His mind before you felt your mother's arms — has an identity if you're willing to embrace His opinion of you.

        Your life circumstances may not drastically change immediately, but this can be a pivotal moment for your heart.The chains of destructive habits and relationships constricting your mind can be broken.

        As I See It, The hope of freedom can turn the desperation in your heart into a Breakthrough for a promising tomorrow.

 

(An excerpt from my upcoming book) 

BREAKTHROUGH: Finding Your God-Given Identity And Enjoying The Life.