Embracing Obscurity

Here's a thought-provoking passage from Sacred Space this week:

"In his classic The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis urges the reader to ‘enjoy being unknown and regarded as nothing.’ What he means is the ability to persist through tedium, to survive without the oxygen of recognition, praise and stroking, to do some good things every day which are seen only by God. Most of us start life as the centre of the universe, being stroked and attended to. Baby’s every smile and whimper is responded to and noted. It is an addictive experience, and it is hard to get used to being just one of a family, and later one of a whole class or school, barely noticed. When children suffer undue neglect or distress, the effects can reveal themselves in adult life. Some people, like pop stars and notice-boxes, never recover from the addiction, never climb out of those infantile lowlands. They find it impossible to survive without notice and applause, and spend their energies seeking it. They never fit themselves for the higher ground where the oxygen of appreciation is thinner, and they have to survive, as à Kempis says, unknown and hardly noticed. For all but his last three years, Jesus was happy to live a hidden life. That is where most of the good in this world is accomplished, by parents, carers, and all who keep going through the daily offering of their unregarded service."

This reflection piece spoke to me particularly, because it strikes a very deep chord inside.

All my teenage and single life, all I had ever wanted was to live a normal, quiet routine, a distant reality from what I was actually experiencing back then with all the hype around my beauty title, my school awards, my TV guestings, stage performances and what not. I was always in the limelight, always standing out when all I wanted was to fit in. I simply wanted to be normal. I just wanted to be one of the guys, to be loved and appreciated for myself and not for the things I am able to do. I loved doing "backstage" stuff, taking on hidden service roles like being a retreat administrator, working behind the scenes, making sure everyone had food and beddings, ringing the bell for wake-up calls, just being everyone's assistant.

When the Lord finally answered my persistent request for obscurity, to be hidden for a while, like a tiny flower which emanates its fragrance from concealment, I have found out after more than a decade of hiddenness that there is more to it than just savouring one's peace and quiet.

There is tedium.

There is boredom.

There is loneliness.

There is also the struggle to cling to one's meaning and purpose in the midst of mundane monotony, to merely survive day after day without being thanked or appreciated, to simply make the effort to smile at people who never smile back, to serve those who think they are entitled to your service anyway, to keep dishing out love and affection when your own "love tank" has been running on empty for a long while. This, by far, has been one of the most difficult and ongoing challenges I have ever encountered, a never-ending test of endurance of spirit. A test which I sometimes barely manage to pass muster, but quite often, more often than I would like, do fail at miserably.

The only thing that keeps me going, after I examine my pockmarked conscience in the middle of the night, is that tomorrow will be a new day, a fresh start, a clean slate.

And I can try again,

and again,

and again,

not just to survive

obscurity

but to embrace it.