Masks

One church advertises itself as the church "where no one wears masks." Apparently, we are increasingly assuming today that everybody is "wearing a mask." That used to be called "hypocrisy," and people would have avoided it like the plague! Now, we seem to be proud of it, or at least, resigned to it. Why do we assume that everybody is wearing a mask, implying that everybody is phony at least part of the time. I don't consider myself being phony when I try to make a good impression on somebody so long as I don't do or say something that is dishonest. I don't consider that I'm wearing a mask when I restrain myself from showing certain very personal emotions to people with whom I want to do business. Now, of course, if I say things I don't really mean, or try to show myself to be somebody I'm not, that could be interpreted, I suppose, as wearing a mask; but that's hardly a requirement of inter-personal relationships in the 21st century! Society does not force you to wear a mask, or to be someone different from who you really are. If you feel that you have to wear a mask, that's nobody's fault but yours.