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            Even prayer doesn’t fulfill our desperate need to be known and loved by other warm human beings.  Still we hold back.  Why?  John Powell answers that question simply in his book Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?  “Because if I tell you who I am, you may not like who I am, and it’s all that I have.”

            I picture a giant Mardi Gras masquerade ball.  The couple has been together all evening, and the man is entranced with this mysterious partner.  As midnight approaches he pleads, “Take off the mask – that’s all that I ask.”  She finally complies and he’s stunned!  “Put back the mask,” he shouts.  That’s what we fear.

Leadership, Spring 1980, page 106