Not as many years ago as the leadership training I mentioned, I went to some missionary training. I won't mention the organization because we were asked not to talk about this particular aspect of the training. But anyone that knows me well could probably figure it out. So I apologize in advance, but I feel like this story needs to be told.
As we entered this excercise, we were asked to mentally and emotionally step into it. The more we were willing to pretend that this was real, the more good it could help us in the long-term. I'll ask the same of you.
I was in a box. Obviosly it was bigger than a box-- 11 of us started in there-- But that is what we called it: the box. At this point, there weren't 11 of us left. Some were dead. At least one had simply dissappeared. I don't remember what happened to everyone, maybe some were free.
But there we were. We had been there for hours (minutes?)-- hostages in a box. I had been chosen to block the door. Not by my fellow captives, but by my captor when he pulled me out of the box, put a hood over my head and sat me on a chair blocking the entrance. This separated me from the group-- not a situation I'm entirely unformiliar with. I couldn't hear what my friends were saying, so I couldn't engage in conversation. I couldn't see. I could only think about, and act on, the things that were inside the small little world that I could feel: The floor, the chair, the hood, and, when our captor was in the room, the gun that he pressed against my head.
This was where I sat when our captor demanded two women leave the box to be executed. The group chose two: a mother, and a young woman in her early twenties. I didn't like it but what could I do. Remember, I could only act on the the things that were in the small little world that I could feel: The floor, the chair, the hood, and, at that particular moment, the gun pressed against my head. So what could I do unless they entered my little world?
But I was blocking the entrance. And in order for them to leave they needed to crawl right under my chair. And as they crawled, I could feel them. And as they entered my little world, I knew exactly what to do. The logic ran through my head. The emotion ran through my heart. My heart and my head were in complete agreement. If I stood up, if I blocked their way. If I made it clear that I wasn't going to sit and let this happen, our captor would have had to choose between killing 2 of us, or 3. Maybe I could have saved one of them.
I even spoke to them: "Don't go," I said. I feebly blocked the way with my foot. But did I stand? Did I stop them? No. And I lived, and they died. It's a lack of action that has haunted me ever sinse. Even tonight, I layed awake thinking about it until I sat down to write this.
How could it be that one of my greatest regets is pretend. Is there something wrong with me? Come to think of it, many of the most important moments in my life, in hindsight, feel pretend. As if someone else took control of my body to do something important. Psychologists would call this disassociation, right? I wonder if that pastor would call it a costume. Maybe he wasn't saying "it's all just a COSTUME?" I wonder if he was saying it's ALL just a costume?" Maybe his point was not "put on some superficial costume for Christ" but that everything we do, everywhere we go, whether a computer programmer or a stay-at-home mom, whether a campus pastor or a perpetual-long-skirt-wearing missionary, whether you're a socs or a greaser, it's all just a costume. This world is a costume. A thin, superficial venere that covers up a reality that goes so much deeper. And maybe those moments of disassociation are the moments when the costume fails and we get a brief, but memorable, glance at who we really are.
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