To look at her one would jump to the conclusion that all was well in her world. That she had her act together. That she was a smooth operator. A person for all seasons. But beneath the outward appearance, and not necessarily deep down but just below the surface there was this frenzy of insecurity and this fear of failure. She knew how to look like humanity personified, but the constant struggle she faced was to half-way meet the projected image on the screen of her existence. To do that meant to be on guard, constantly striving to be more than she was.
Whoever she was, she is someone with whom we can all identify. For her struggle is what all of us do in different degrees. There are times when living seems like one big game of pretend, which was fun when we were children, but a bit absurd for adults.
Teenagers know this feeling better than any of us. Frederick Buechner, in Whistling in the Dark, describes this aptly in a portrait of an adolescent standing in front of a mirror: “The opaque glance and the pimples. The fancy new nakedness they’re all dressed up in with no place to go. The eyes full of secrets they have a strong hunch everybody is on to. The shadowed brow. Being not quite a child and not quite a grown-up either is hard work, and they look it. Living in two worlds at once is no picnic. One of the worlds, of course, is innocence, self-forgetfulness, openness, playing for fun. The other is experience, self-consciousness, guardedness, playing for keeps. Some of us go on straddling them both for years.”
It is hard work, keeping our fingers crossed all our lives. Only pretending to live. Playing house. Playing work. Playing recreation. Playing church. In order to seem like living, both to others and to ourselves. We learn somewhere along the way to promote ourselves to be more than we can be. Projecting ourselves — our better selves. The selves we wish we could be. Until there is a blurred distinction between reality and the projection.Just like The Great Pretender that the Platters crooned about in the 50’s…too real is this feeling of make believe/ too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal.
Even in church, we have learned to define the Christian life in certain ways; recognize that we are not quite in the ball park; but pretend that we are close enough. The late Baptist minister, Carlyle Marney, used to say: “People go to church not to be who they are, but to be who they hope to God they look like they are.” The Lord of life invites us all to live just as we are. We don’t have to be great pretenders. No need to put on airs.
Or as the motto of North Carolina puts it: esse quam videri –“to berather than to seem.”