Take Off the Mask

The Theatre of God

Alice: Every time you run past me you keep mumbling something about the Theatre of God. What's the Theatre of God?

White Rabbit: Something to do, if you've got the time.

Alice: Time? Ha! What's that? No I don't! Haven't you noticed? All I do all day long is run around like crazy, shouting, 'no time! no time!' desperate to survive the rat race, just scrambling along, trying to get everything done.

White Rabbit: You must not be on God-time then.

Alice: God-time? What's that?

White Rabbit: The right time to do something. On God-time you're never late.

Alice: I'm always late.

White Rabbit: Stop wasting time then.

Alice: I'm not wasting time! There's just too little of it to get everything done.

White Rabbit: Not if you're on God-time. It's important, you know. TIME. Something you shouldn't waste. You should be on God-time all the time.

Alice: What do you mean?

White Rabbit: I mean you put God in charge of your time. You ask Him: 'Should I make a peanut butter jelly sandwich or work on my taxes?' 'Should I exercise or go to the grocery store?' You ask Him, 'what should I do RIGHT NOW? This VERY MINUTE?' And then you get very still and listen to your thoughts and follow what they tell you. You follow the instructions that spontaneously pop in your mind. Even if they say: 'Don't do anything!'

Alise: Okay...?

White Rabbit: And when you do that, the silliest thing happens: You realize that you did everything that was important and nothing unimportant. And as an added bonus ended up working on something that you always wanted to do, but never had time for. Like, say, the Theatre of God.

Alice: And what exactly is the Theatre of God?

White Rabbit: Just -- Theatre for people that are tired of acting.

Alice: ?

White Rabbit: You like acting, don't you, Alice?

Alice: I do -- or -- DID. Before my mind got all confused and I lost touch of myself and my feelings. Before I lost my language and got sick. Yes, way back when, before all that other stuff happened, I did like it. But that was when I was still that other person. The fake one. Yes, I did like it then, and thought I was pretty good too. Actually, when I was acting, that's when I felt the most like myself. Isn't that funny? In real life I was pretending all the time, acting like someone that I wasn't. But when I was openly acting, I felt more authentic than when I wasn't.

Then of course it all went haywire, when I got sick. I couldn't perform at all anymore.

White Rabbit: You couldn't perform, because you took you're mask off, Alice. And now, if you ever want to act again, all that's left for you, is the Theatre of God.

Alice: But what is the Theatre of God?

White Rabbit: In the Theatre of God you take off the mask -- the one you've been wearing. And the only performance you do is an unperformance, where you stop acting and show your true self to the audience. In the theaters of the world the actors put masks on and act like someone that they're not. In the Theatre of God, it's the opposite. In the Theatre of God the actors take off the mask, stop acting, and only perform as who they really are. They unperform.

Alice: Wow. I could do that. I could unperform. That's what I do anyway, all day long, practice taking my mask off. Tell me more.

White Rabbit: Why don't I show you? Are you ready? Close your eyes. Imagine an empty stage and a silent audience sitting in the dark waiting for the performance to begin. Now imagine the lights turn on, slowly, revealing YOU standing in the middle of the stage, all alone, without any of that usual armor that you're so used to wearing. It's time for you to take off the mask. And the way you do it, is by unperforming. By showing them your true self, and by telling them your story, the real one, the one you've been so afraid to tell, and always trying to hide, because you're so ashamed of it. 

That's how God does Theatre. 

And there will be music, and there will be lights, and all those other usual things that help make theatre such an enjoyable experience for everyone. Yes, all of that other stuff will be there too. But most importantly, there will be an unperformance, and an unmasking -- of you. Just you telling the audience your real story without trying to make it any prettier than it is. 

And they'll love it. Because it's true!

Alice: But that makes me really nervous.

White Rabbit: Yes. It's called stage-fright. Any true unperformance without stage-fright is no unperformance at all. But once you do this, others will quickly follow, and they will come with their own unperformances, a group of unperformers for God's Theatre, an army of people ready to take off the mask that they've been wearing for so long. Did you know that there's some real talent out there running loose in the world, unrealized, wasting precious TIME -- just like you -- people going waste, actors, musicians, painters, singers, dancers, poets... All of them hiding real gems inside of them, just waiting for the opportunity to unperform and show the gifts that God has put inside of them. 

Gifts that can ONLY come out through an unperformance. When people stop acting like someone else they'd rather be. When they take off the mask. Wouldn't you love to see all those hidden talents showcase their gifts, Alice?

Alice: Yes.

White Rabbit: But first, someone has to have the guts to show them how it's done. Would you show them?

Alice: I don't know about that...

White Rabbit: Something to think about. 

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