Staying in Character
Long after the hall has emptied,
the old actor
folds his costume
the way his mother once folded
her Sunday linen
carefully,
because some things
deserve to be put away with gratitude.
Tomorrow,
someone else will wear the robe.
And I wonder
how many lives
I have mistaken
for my own.
There are days
I reach for old costumes:
the one called success,
the one that always needs to be right,
the one that wants to be admired,
the one that refuses to be wounded.
They still fit
more easily than they should.
Then life,
without asking permission,
loosens every stitch.
A closed door.
A silence
where a familiar voice should be.
A kindness
I would rather withhold.
These are the scenes
that never appeared in the script.
Character is what remains
when there is no audience left to impress.
The finest actors
lose themselves
inside another story.
The saints
make room
for Another
to live within theirs.
Not suddenly.
The iroko
does not hurry toward strength.
Year after year,
through drought,
through rain,
through winds no one remembers,
it simply keeps growing.
Holiness is not learning to perform.
It is learning to yield.
Slowly,
the Creed
becomes the way I answer the telephone.
Mercy
finds its way into my hands.
Forgiveness
reaches my lips
before resentment does.
No one applauds
such ordinary faithfulness.
Perhaps that is why
God treasures it.
One evening,
when every costume
has been folded away,
when every title
has fallen silent,
may Love receive me
with the same patient care
my mother gave her Sunday linen
not asking
how well I played my part,
only whether,
beneath everything I wore,
the face of Christ
had quietly begun
to shine through mine.
