As the Coronavirus spikes in many places and as restrictions turn into mandates, I might seem as if we will be wearing masks in public places for an indefinite amount of time. Some of us protest about it. Some of us just accept it without much thought. Some of us consider it wisdom to wear it and some of us believe it doesn’t protect us and in fact harms us? There are so many different opinions out there that just thinking about them can put one into a deeper state of uncertainty.

I am not making any statement about masks besides that I, for now, must wear one. What I am more interested in now, as a spiritual leader, is who’s behind the mask? If I ask myself who is behind my mask, I would dig deep into my consciousness, not just about COVID 19, but about where I see myself right now and where I see myself going. The mask forces me to be a little quieter and listen more deeply to myself. My eyes are free to see the physical world and my brothers and sisters, but who is seeing from behind the mask?

I want to be really honest right now. Behind my mask is a lot of trust and faith in the unknown. Behind my mask is some frustration concerning how I would like to live my life and how I feel forced to live it. Many of the simple freedoms that I never thought of before are now either gone or cause me to do a lot of planning and working it out in order to practice that freedom. I’m talking about the simple freedom of going out to lunch or planning a party or any of those simple pleasures that just were before March 2020. Of course, what is all this in contrast to people who are suffering and dying? My inconveniences seem insignificant and yet I do feel sad about the loss.

So, who’s behind my mask? Someone who is reinventing her life. Someone who is stripping away everything she thought she was doing and recreating, not her purpose, but how that purpose will be lived. Behind my mask is someone who is going deeper than ever before into the well of beingness and making sure she knows what she believes. She is asking the question “Who am I?” She is asking the question “What is mine to do?” She is contemplating what it would be like if everything she had created was stripped away. Would she still be okay?

I think the COVID challenge is to find our true selves without all the extra stuff that we had, that we did, that we thought we were. If we look at all the mystics that have come and gone, prophets, even Jesus himself, we might find a common denominator. They were all challenged by something on the outside, and they were all forced to go more deeply within. Our challenge right now is the same.

So, I invite you, as you put on your mask, to ask yourself who is that being that takes their fingers and pulls the elastic behind their ears. Certainly, it is not just some person. I know when I look deeply enough and really ask the question “Who Am I?” The mask just becomes a thing I do in the world of form because right now it is a good idea. It is not my identity, and what I’m thinking about it doesn’t really matter. I am not the one performing the act. I am the one behind the performer. I am my true self who is gently laughing at the whole thing because I am the eternal being that has chosen to live in time and space and to live by its rules. As I look at you, I see the same thing. As eyes meet eyes, I see God pretending perfectly not to be God.

In Love and Truth,

Rev. Rita