Let the Mask Fall in the Gathering Dark

The day is done, but the mask is still heavy on your face, holding everything together while the house grows quiet. You have spent hours performing a version of yourself that cannot break, afraid that if you stop moving, the cracks will show.

— But look at your hands; they are finally still, and the light that lives inside you does not need your performance to be real. In the Gospel of Thomas, the Savior said, 'Split a piece of wood; I am there.

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.' The light is in the broken wood, not in the perfect veneer. You do not have to shine for anyone tonight; the one who sees you knows the secret name written on a white stone that only you and God can read.

The gathering dark is not a judgment; it is the permission to let the mask fall and be the child who is simply known.