How To Disappear Completely

Constructed Spirituality

I've been reading Erving Goffman's Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, which, if you have a cynical view of human nature to begin with, is a freakish book to allow to infiltrate your mind. This sociologist basically examines the performances we maintain in order to communicate messages: sometimes performances (our actions) are deliberately constructed because alternative versions just send the wrong message. For example, a customer wants to shop at a store that appears to be bustling with too many tasks to complete, because the evidence of numerous shoppers communicates that the store must be doing something right (i.e., offering good service and quality goods). A store wants to attract customers in order to stay in business. Thus the store must make the customer think the business is prosperous and well-patronized. Thus its employees must look busy, even if it means dusting a clean shelf till the polish wears off. Perhaps the store is in fact very busy, but receives most of its income from internet or phone orders. These service employees are not seen by the customer entering the store. So the customer must view the "stand-in" employee attempt to look busy and communicate the appropriate (and perhaps very true) message that the store is successful. However, the employee himself is enacting a sham regarding his own personal busyness. Conversely, an employee can be extremely busy, even if the store is going under. Thus the message is true about the employee and a sham regarding the business.

And this book makes me ask questions about spirituality and spiritual performances. We expect people to use certain phrases or gestures in order to indicate sincerity or true belief. We expect, perhaps, a crack in the voice to indicate pathos and "real gritty" experience, or maybe empathy and conviction. People with no expressions are said to be fake. Or we are told to do the right thing, even if we don't feel like it; feelings (might) come later. We want to be good witnesses, so we refrain from doing things (or we go out and do things) that reflect well on Christianity (or Christ Himself).

But we seem to have the idea that performance belies sincerity. "That's not the way things really are; he's only acting." Spontaneity is more natural and thus a more "real" indicator of a person's character. But what if the message communicated is real? What if Christ's love is real even if I don't feel like believing it at the time that I show love to someone else? And lastly, why can't a performance just simply flat out be reality? If someone chooses her words carefully, in order to communicate precisely what she means, why can't someone also choose her actions carefully? I realize there is the possibility (all too often) of encountering someone who says all the right things, goes through all the actions, maybe even feels all the right emotions and yet ends up falling away. If a possibilty exists at all then I am not immune; rather I fall dangerously close. The words, actions, feelings are sometimes there. But sometimes they are not. And I look inside myself and ask in confusion: am I really just performing a sham faith?

Which leads me to ask: what is faith?

Is it some words?
Is it some feeling of conviction?
Is it some action?
Is it a combination of all three?
Or is it simply God taking me to Himself, regardless of anything I've ever done or could do?

Grace is the most humiliating thing that can ever happen to a girl.