Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.  Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.  Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.  Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.  Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.

–Proverbs 4:23-27 (NIV)

Authenticity
          (Part One)

Getting Real

I was sitting alone in a crowded fast food restaurant when I overheard part of a conversation. One young woman was saying to another, in very loud tones, “Honey, you gotta get real!”  I didn’t need to hear more to understand that a basic belief system was being challenged, a worldview that was not grounded in reality.  Have you ever been told to “get real,” by a friend, a spouse, a daughter, or a son?

What does it mean to be real?  In her 1922 children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams tells the parable of a stuffed rabbit who asks the same question of a ragged old companion in the nursery, the Skin Horse.  The bunny asks his older friend this question.

“What is real?...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 often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who 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.[1]

Being the real you, the one with all the fur rubbed off, can be painful.  It means dropping the façade and letting everyone see you, as you truly are.  It means being authentic, which I propose as the first pillar that marks the pathway of the noble life – The Way of the King.  In prior articles, I have alluded to these pillars as being Authenticity, Followship, Simplicity, Resilience, and Valor.  They are also Biblical themes that we will briefly explore together.

Author and teacher Neil Anderson says, “People may not always live what they profess, but they will always live what they believe.”[2]  For the Christian, authenticity starts by exploring the depths of belief, and continues by asking God to reform and transform him or her according to the image of His son.  Jesus is the only one who can lead His followers to authenticity of the Kingdom kind.

In Authenticity-Part Two we will look at reality of two kinds, and the harmony of belief that inspires values, attitudes, motives, and behavior.  If your behavior is inconsistent with what you say you believe, then you either have to do something about that, or give in and blend in with everyone else.  Living a lie is not an option – you cannot live with the dissonance.