Keeping it Real

Believe it or not, that tow-headed 17 year old is me playing Oscar Madison in a 1971 production of The Odd Couple at Wilson High School of Long Beach, California.

Drama was fun. In addition to sloppy Oscar, my three years with the Wilson Theater Department afforded me a chance to play a psychiatrist (David and Lisa), a backwoods rapist (Dark of the Moon), a Civil War army captain (The Miracle Worker) and a depressed narcissist (The American Dream).

I was never crazy enough to consider a career at it, but the discipline of learning a script and keeping focus onstage was terrific training. And despite the amateur simplicity of a school production, there really was something exhilarating about trying to inhabit another character, and another’s life, if only for a few hours. To act is to present yourself as someone you’re not, in the hope your audience will thoroughly believe you.

“It’s time someone told her that what works onstage
may not be attractive offstage.”
-All About Eve

Acting is great for plays, but as the ad says, Do Not Try This at Home. The people who know and trust me are hardly an audience, so they should get the unvarnished, unrehearsed version. Trouble is, I’m not always so willing to give that version to them, or anyone.

I say all of this because I’ve found I’m not alone in that weakness. For whatever reason, honesty comes up as an issue for more than 90% of the men I work with. They’ve so often gotten used to lying about their private habits that dishonesty becomes a habit of its own. (In fact, when David said “All men are liars” in Psalm 116:11, you gotta wonder if he was emphasizing the sin or the gender)

And the dishonesty habit is a hard one to break, for sure. Walking in the light means swearing off the classically male penchant for telling half-truths, convenient truths, or wildly exaggertated truths, none of which are truths at all.

That means my yea should be yea, my answer to How you doing? should be accurate, my beliefs and actions will be harmonious and, when they’re not, I’ll admit it. I should keep it real, and interestingly enough, while keeping it real, I find it that much easier to keep it clean as well. Authenticity and holiness go together nicely; one can hardly put on a false face in a godly way.

“When a man lies, he murders some part of the world.”
-Excalibur

Three scriptures come to mind:

“Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds.” (Colossians 3:9)
“For ye were sometimes darkness, but now [are ye] light in the Lord: walk as children of light.” (Ephesians 5:8)
“Confess your faults one to another.” (James 5:16)

Don’t lie; walk in light; ‘fess up. If I take these to heart, I’ll make transparency a goal today. Discretion is still on the menu, of course, since not everyone who asks how I am really wants anything more than the Reader’s Digest version, and some things – many of them, actually – shouldn’t be casually shared. Still, I’ll make sure I don’t present myself as being more than what I am.

There should be no roles, no spiritual pretense or professional veneer, just an honest presentation of the real person. Keeping it real means to be especially careful not to hold back when a truthful answer is called for, and to let the people closest to you know how you really feel, be it good, bad or awful. (Full disclosure: That’s the toughtest one for me. I don’t overtly lie; I just hedge like a
professional gardener.)

And if – ha! –no, I meant when I sin, I’ll confess it to God and, as needed, someone else, and I’ll make that sort of honesty a natural part of my regular conversation. That, to my thinking, is what walking in the light is largely about, and when taking that walk I find a peaceful, separated mindset comes pretty easily.

Acting can be fun and, for a very select few, even a profitable way of making a living. But for most of us, it’s about being, not acting, and in being true to Him and the new nature He’s given us in Christ. And in that “keeping it real” mindset, we can offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable, warts and all.

Amazing to think of what He can do with such unrehearsed, unpolished, but authentic vessels.