It’s Ladie’s Retreat time; a time of year that can spark fear into my mom’s heart, as she is the woman in charge of the “skit” each year. To say it’s difficult to come up with an entertaining, scripture-based skit for women of God who range in age from 18 to 90 is an understatement. Let’s just say you have to have Divine inspiration. She got it.
My Grandma died in January and the family has been cleaning out her house, boxing up belongings and reminiscing along the way. Mom and Dad brought multiple items home with them, including a book called Balcony People. The book was set aside, as there was much work to do. Meanwhile, mom was lamenting the fact that she’d hit a creative dry spell where this year’s skit was concerned. The theme is “Cracked Pots” and the gist is that everyone is broken/cracked and it’s ok. God’s light shines through the cracks. We talked about it several times in conversations that left me frustrated because I couldn’t help her and her no better off.
Then she picked up the book that she’d brought home from Grandma’s and started reading. She called me that night and told me the skit had almost started writing itself thanks to the inspiration she got from it. Of course I had to read it. Let me say it took me about a half an hour - the first time. I’ve read it multiple times now and find something new each time. The theme was there right away, especially in this quote: “We are now His broken things. But remember how He has used broken things: the broken pitchers of Gideon’s little army, the broken roof through which the paralyzed man was lowered to be healed, the broken alabaster box which shed its fragrance abroad and the broken body of our Savior”. Is that spot on or what?
When read through the right lens in the right frame of mind, it’s a raw look at humanity and the way we “pretend” our way through life, fearing that if we let others see our flaws, we’ll be rejected. The book says “So we retreat behind masks. We feel hypocritical and have nagging feelings of guilt for what we know we are supposed to be, compared with the reality of what we are. But we feel safer behind our masks”.
Balcony People is also about two kinds of folks: evaluators and affirmers. Affirmers lift you up, while evaluators tear you down. It reminded me of the book Multipliers I had to read for work, only this one obviously had a religious focus. Multipliers was eh. I loved this book. While it is a simple, straightforward book, the message in it is one that all of us need to hear/be reminded of: everyone needs affirmation. Period.
How many of us find ourselves affirming the actions of others? I do. “Great job on that test, you did such a nice job mowing the lawn, I’m proud of how smart you are” etc. I loved this quote: Godly affirmation is based not on what we are, or what we’ve accomplished, but just on the fact that we are who we are. That made me do some reflection, not only on my parenting, but on my friendships, family relationships and more.
How much evaluating do we do on a daily basis? Um, a lot. What a hard habit to break, right? I liked the way Heatherley said this, “Each of us has a weakness from which we run, a love which we hesitate to share, a need to receive, a need for the growth of gentleness, a need for the fact of reconciliation”. Sometimes, in a world where the perfect home, body, job, yard, car, kids, pets etc. are just one Pinterest board away, it’s hard to remember that everyone feels this way.
The bottom line of this book is for you, by self reflection, to answer the question - who are your balcony people (affirmers) and who are your basement people (evaluators) and what are you to others? It is definitely worth the read. She also mentioned a few other authors who might be worth a look. They include: J. Keith Miller, and Eugenia Price.
From Balcony People:
Please Hear What I’m Not Saying
Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks—
masks that I’m afraid to take off and none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me.
But don’t be fooled, for God’s sake don’t be fooled.
I give you the impression that I’m secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water’s calm and I’m in command, and that I need no one.
But don’t believe me. Please!
My surface may be smooth, I don’t want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weaknesses and fear exposing them.
That’s why I frantically create my masks to hide behind.
They’re nonchalant, sophisticated facades to help me pretend,
To shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only salvation, and I know it.
That is, if it’s followed by acceptance, of what I can’t assure myself, that I’m really worth something.
But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare.
I’m afraid to. I’m afraid you’ll think less of me,
that you’ll laugh and your laugh would kill me.
I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing, that I’m just no good
and you will see this and reject me. So I play my game, And my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that’s nothing And nothing of what’s everything, of what’s crying within me.
So when I’m going through my routine
Do not be fooled by what I’m saying
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying.
Hear what I’d like to say but what I can not say. Even though my masks would tell you otherwise.
It will not be easy for you.
Long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.
The nearer you approach me The blinder I may strike back.
Despite what books say of men, I am irrational; I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
You wonder who I am? You shouldn’t for I am
every man
and
every woman.
