We are not going all out with Halloween decorations. It’s our first year in town. We’re just getting settled in. We have other priorities.

We did set up our Halloween projector at the front window, however. That was a simple thing to do. It projects a variety of short, looped movies in the spirit of the season: dancing skeletons, zombies pawing at the window, a spooky scarecrow, that sort of thing.

The way this projector works, though, is that it has to project onto something. The device stays safe and dry inside the house, and it projects the images onto a screen hung up in the window.

At first we thought we didn’t need to hang a special screen up. We have blinds in the front window that are pretty thin, and we thought we could just project onto those. But when we tried it out, the images weren’t very clear. The material was just too thick, and the little accordion folds in the blinds distorted things enough that it really didn’t work.

When we put the screen up in the window, the projections looked amazing. The material was thin enough to let the image show up crisp and clear, and it was smooth so there was no distortion. We could share those creepy little scenes with everyone passing by.

It reminds me of why authenticity is so important. As human beings, we have a basic need to feel known and loved and accepted. We have a need to be seen and validated for who we really are.

And yet, a lot of times, we throw up a barrier to protect ourselves. We project our identities into the world through a thick mask that distorts and blurs who we really are. We probably learned at some point in the past what we have to do in order to be accepted, safe, respected, or loved. Maybe we put on a bit of a false face to hide our true selves because we’re afraid that if people knew who we really are, we’d be rejected, ridiculed, abandoned, or worse.

When we project a distorted image of who we are, though, we sabotage opportunities to be truly seen and accepted and celebrated. We forget how powerful authenticity can be. We forget that we respond differently to vulnerably authentic people than we do to people who project a false caricature of themselves.

Maybe all the mask-wearing and disguises around Halloween are just an exaggerated display of something we all do in more subtle ways the rest of the year. But what would it be like for us to cultivate brave spaces where we can be more accurately and fully seen? Where the image that we project to others more clearly reflects our deepest, most noble selves?

What if we gave people a chance to see us clearly and appreciate, celebrate, love us for who we truly are? If we were to do that—to cultivate that kind of vulnerable authenticity—we might even create space for others to be so brave.

That kind of work may seem like a scary proposition. But it might just lead to something  more beautiful than we can possibly imagine.

Rev. Randy Partain

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