Confession time: Sometimes, when it comes to my faith, I feel like a poser. I don't always love others the way that Christ calls us Christians to love. To be a poser in something that is so important, something that I am so well known for--well, it makes me feel fake, disloyal, hypocritical, shallow, and without courage. I may look the part, but I lack substance.
And yet, by what I can only attribute as a gift of grace, I stumbled upon a children's book that conquered those feelings. The Velveteen Rabbit.
"'What is Real?' asked the Rabbit one day. 'Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?' 'Real isn't how you are made' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.' 'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 'Sometimes' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.' 'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked 'or bit by bit?' 'It doesn't happen all at once' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.'"
When I think of Jesus' face as He walks through the streets of Jerusalem with a heavy wooden cross and the weight of the world on His shoulders, I see real love. I imagine the blood from the crown of thorns dripping into his eyes, blurring his vision. He falls, but He rises again. The scene is very violent and shocking, but it is real.
Whenever you encounter and receive real, unconditional love from another, it comes with a new realm of personal freedom. This new freedom is what allows us to become our true selves, to express ourselves without fear of rejection or judgement from another. We are then free to love others with that same unconditional love, helping others to experience that freedom we have found. Unfortunately, this expression of freedom can sometimes cause friction from those who have yet to be set free from the invisible prison in which they live. They become envious of your freedom.
This is the "good" in the Good News--God loves the real you and is willing to have a relationship with you, even if you aren't at your best. You don't have to clean yourself up before approaching Him. The reactions and opinions of others no longer have power over you because God's opinion is all that matters. His banner over you is love.
When you consider who or what is real in your life, you may notice that the real things are a bit weathered. It takes a long time to become real. You may also notice that in everyday life, there is a higher cost for what is real. For example, genuine works of art are very expensive. The price is high, but the experience is so much richer.
In our shallow culture, I fear that real people are endangered. The Devil doesn't want us or our love to ever become real because he knows the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He tells us to simply be polite, politically correct, to not get too deep and to look out for our own interests. We're encouraged to live as comfortably as possible, to medicate whatever pain we may experience, to sin if necessary, to rid our neighborhoods of the poor and homeless (and not by helping them but in an 'out of sight, out of mind' view), to hide our elderly in nursing homes, to abort our babies when they are an inconvenience or deemed 'unhealthy' in the womb. The world doesn't want your faith to ever be realized in this life. This is why Jesus and the Church place such an emphasis on manifesting the love of God to "the least of these" by showing mercy, compassion, and kindness.
Once you develop an appetite for what's genuine and sincere, it's almost impossible to be content or find much satisfaction in what isn't. I guess this is why I'm a follower of Jesus or a Catholic for that matter. I've yet to encounter anything that comes remotely close to the real love and truth I've found through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But I still have a long way to go.
As The Velveteen Rabbit teaches, becoming real is a process, but it is all worth it in the end.
