Discarding an old costume

Photo from: Mastering Costume Quick Changes - Dramatics Magazine

Can you believe April is almost over already? It will soon be May, another month that will seem to blur by in hazy spring busyness. It can be overwhelming, right? How do we grasp time and slow it down, just for a little bit, while we soak in the small moments that quickly turn into bigger ones and then string together to make our lives? Well, I have not figured that one out yet, but I think the concept of time is a complicated, layered mystery and one of the most challenging things that we all face as humans is how to accept the change that time brings along with it.

When I think about time and change, it leads me to growth. Physical growth, mental growth, emotional growth, societal growth, perspective growth, and so on. This growth is scary, and almost inevitably leads us down paths that force us to make difficult decisions, come to terms with the type of person we are and who we want to be, and gives us the power to choose some very important parts of our lives. It can be easy to choose the wrong thing and when to make the choices is often a guessing game.

Clay and I love to read together and this week we chose a book that my mom and I picked out together on a whim at the grocery store. Now, I am a very picky book reader and so I was skeptical as it is outside of my usual comfort zone, but Clay was intrigued because it was a book set in World War II. The book is called "The Night Train to Berlin" by Melanie Hudson. We are almost 100 pages in so far, and I am shocked at how the book reads. It is insightful and I am utterly captivated. One passage in particular, stood out to me. It goes as follows: "The roles we choose for ourselves, which are interchangeable, don't always suit our true character, which is not interchangeable; at least I don't think so. I have come to the conclusion that it is not a failing to discard an old costume and choose another role, in another play, if the one you chose originally is now too difficult for you to play out with true conviction" (Hudson 43). I reread this passage at least a dozen times. It is not only mesmerizing, but an intriguing way to think about how we navigate life, how we change our goals, our personalities, the people we are around, and of how we often, quite often actually, discard old costumes for ones that fit better. It looks growth directly in the eye and lets it have control, rather than fight to hold onto things that no longer fit.

The beginning of the quote is a mouthful itself, letting us reflect on how the roles we play can be switched out, adjusted and edited depending on our setting, our peers, etc. It made me consider how I am different around different people. A polite distance for strangers, a casual closeness for my family, a fun and carefree 22-year-old for my friends, a responsible employee for my boss. How much of this is the roles I am playing compared to my true character? I found the answer to be that the personalities I display are influenced directly by my character, as it is the driving force of my behavior. I also think that the quote is referring to how we behave in situations we outgrow, and the not-fitting-in part is when we realize that the role no longer is in sync with our character. This led me to think about my character, outside of the personalities and roles that I play. It made me think about church and how I behave as a child of God. Being a child of God is a large part of my character, encompassing my entire identity. It is not a role or a costume that I wear when I sit down in a pew or open my Bible or sing a hymn. No, this is intertwined within the fabric of my soul, and it goes with me everywhere and influences the personalities that I display to everyone. It helped me to identify what parts of me are my changing roles and personalities (funny, moody, stoic, playful, etc.) compared to what my character is (child of God, lover of books and music, artistic craftsperson, student, etc.). My character becomes the common thread throughout every chapter in my life and by feeding it and paying attention to it, I can develop and grow in the different roles I am placed in.

As children of God, it is extremely important to understand which parts of us fall under character and which parts fall under the roles we play. Our character is not something we can simply walk away from, put down, or exchange for a new one. And the Bible's guidance, our relationship with God, and the ways in which we choose to be like Jesus, are not things we can drop the moment something in our life changes. For example, we cannot simply divorce when we get tired of whoever we are married to, we cannot justify a mistake by pretending it did not happen, we cannot abandon God and expect His blessings to continue to shower over us. These are roles that we navigate through developing our character; we choose carefully who we marry, we repent for our sins, and we do our best to feed our spiritual side every day. In this way, we can relate to this quote, not by using it to justify any type of change, but only the changes that we cannot control due to the growth of ourselves and others.

This brings me back to how being a child of God grows with me as I grow, and because it changes and grows over time, it can cause some of the roles I am playing to get too small, as they do not grow with me. In this way, it relates directly to how our character is not interchangeable. My character does not change, but the places I go, the people I am around, the topics of conversation, and so much more do change. The people we are around and the variables that determine how we act grow as well. Because of this, we adapt how we behave according to these changes. A friend in your group turns atheist, someone you used to hang out with all the time stops talking to you, someone else moves away, another friend falls into the wrong crowd and asks you if you want to come to a bonfire, just to roll a joint and pass it your way, waiting for you to take it. Different examples include how you graduate high school, choose different colleges than your friends or you choose not to go to college, you want to do a different sport in high school than the one you did in junior high, you get jobs in different cities, etc. How do we handle these things, or things like this? We have all lost friends, all longed for the relationship we used to have with someone, or multiple people. We used to fit in and now we don't and we can't pinpoint exactly why or when something changed. Well the short answer is that you grew up in different ways and at different rates than the people who used to be at the same level as you. When this happens you are forced to choose whether to keep this role in your life or if you want to shed it and pick up another one. It can be an opportunity to reflect on your character and it helps you make the decision. When your old friend is waiting for you to take the joint, you don't have to take it. You don't have to wear that role. Sometimes never wearing a role like that means that you have grown more than if you had picked it up. Your character is not interchangeable, meaning your standards, as a child of God, should not change depending on your setting. You do not have to lower your standards for yourself or for your friends because the role no longer fits. When you sit down to eat lunch with your junior high teammates (because friendships should not be exclusive to whether you play the same sport or not) and you feel excluded, you don't have to keep being around them. You can pick up a new role and sit with new friends. New friends that help your character grow and become a nicer, more genuine, child of God.

God wants you to grow, He wants us to become uncomfortable in our complacency, and He walks with us through all of the growing pains that come with the change. He is our common thread; He is the one thing in this life that will not change. We will change and grow to understand more about the depth of His love, but He is always there while we outgrow old cozy places, lose and make friends, and navigate relationships with the world. Relationships ebb and flow and we are forced to deal with it emotionally, whether we wanted the change or not. When it comes to our growth as children of God, we need to listen to Him to understand where to go, what parts of our heart to develop and focus on, like our sincerity, our welcoming, our discerning, etc. We want to be like Jesus. We want to discard our earthly role and pick up the heavenly one that God has for us. Will we ever completely discard our earthly role? Not while we are here on earth, but we can always shed layers of this role. To do this, we can discard things that no longer fit with our character. We can recognize the changes and pray for guidance as to how to handle these difficult adjustments with grace. We can consult our Common Thread as often as necessary. This journey isn't easy. Not only are we dealing with the change itself, but also the abrupt realizations that something or somewhere that used to be a comfortable and safe place is no longer that for us. Friends feel like strangers, familiar settings feel lonely and cold, and we can often feel alienated while we are trying to take the next step in the change. It forces us to be out of our comfort zone, forces us to face the unknown and try something new, all while abandoning something from our past. It is intimidating. I think this is where we grow the most though, as we are forced to rely on God, forced to humble ourselves, forced to restart as a different person than we used to be.

On the flip side, sometimes we crave a change, but do not know how to approach it. Maybe you do not love your boyfriend/girlfriend like you used to and you need to move on but you do not want to hurt their feelings. Or you do not like your job anymore and you want to quit but you do not know how to leave the security of your current job. Or you want to move away, but you are scared of restarting in another location. This is referring more to the second half of the quote from the book that I mentioned earlier: "I have come to the conclusion that it is not a failing to discard an old costume and choose another role, in another play, if the one you chose originally is now too difficult for you to play out with true conviction" (Hudson 43). The quote is right; you are not failing if you are recognizing how you are growing and what you need to do to respect that growth. You can break up with him/her before marriage, you can apply to new jobs, you can move to a new place. Remember, God is always with you, encouraging that spiritual growth, which in turn encourages every other kind of growth in this life. These are chances for us to develop our character by doing the best we can to live by the Bible and handle these changing roles by using our character to find a better role.

Growing is a natural part of life and it can be easy to feel as though we are not doing enough or we could do something different to still be accepted in the places that we are outgrowing. Things are in your life for a reason or a season. Sometimes, we need to move on and change and grow in order to develop our character and become the person that God has designed us to be. We cannot stay in one place forever, but this quote has helped me to consider a different perspective on change and how we can view it as an opportunity to discard a costume/role or to choose another play to be part of in order to find places and people that help our character grow. It is not a failure to discard these costumes, but instead it is necessary to encourage growth in our character, which in turn helps us see the world in new and interesting ways. We cannot slow down time, we cannot stop the change from coming, but we can alter our perspective to see these changes as opportunities to grow and opportunities to rely on God to guide us through the journey of life, as our common thread.

Hudson, Melanie.Night Train to Berlin. 2021. Print.