From under the mask

Have you ever gotten a call you didn't want? Yes, I imagine you have. Chances are you still get them, I know I do. These calls I am talking about aren't from the phone though. These calls are inside. We are all receivers you know. Sure, the call may be different and the caller maybe different, but none-the-less we all have callings. This call, is to something more than a normal life. Who reading this has never felt as a child that they were somehow destined to greater things than the average lives around them? Even if for a fleeting moment.

My depiction of destiny has always been a man with arms full of masks. These masks have changed as time progressed, switched out one for another, but the man beneath has remained essentially the same. These masks read like an open book to those few who get to see them in the dark corners where he stands. Each mask is bolder and more intense. Each mask exudes confidence and charisma more than the next. Each mask has a word written across the front and a story written behind the eyes. Each mask, though intricately different, is an extension of the next. Each mask speaks one word, but it is so faint and fragile.

So this one word has been my assumed destiny and nothing else. I say assumed because it is one that I may have well chosen on my own. It may in fact not be mine to live. Now, no other dream has bested it and though it lived only in my imagination for many years (in that comfortable and safe place) it has found a way out. It is alive and it is thrashing about in the wake of finding realities oh-so unwelcoming arms. Struggling in defiance of a world that does not seem to be designed for such a virtue.

What then of the masked man? He is stubborn and refuses to give up to the harshness of any world, imagination or reality. However, he is confused and afraid as he wonders what the next move is and whether these masks have been made for him or by him. The slippery answers to these questions weigh on his feet and drag his eyes down. No hand has intervened and no tear has watered his dry lips save for one. So he shuffles around in the deep places with a fire burning inside. Speaking over and over that one fragile word so that I don't forget. A reminder that every passing moment is a chance to remove the mask and wear the truth underneath.

So this call that comes to me now, it bears no mask. It is not a shield for me to cover up with and, most disturbingly, it has no story written on it that I can see. So like the mask man I shuffle and stumble wanting to both welcome this call and wanting it to be different than it is at the same time. Wondering if it is in fact a call that I can heed and where it will take me. Most of all wondering if that faint spoken word is my life and reality now...or is it only a dream?

*This bout of utter metaphor and confusing dialogue provided by Dayspring. Dayspring, your source for nonsensical posts since 2004.