These coats we wear
Bought in childhood
Bright and shiny in youth
Slightly ill fitting in middle age
Worn out and frayed in maturity

Why not just throw them off
And go naked and free

Because when we try to take them off
We find they are stuck to us
And we are strangely attached to them

We want to be free
But the coat is familiar and safe
We want to be naked and open
But the coat hides our shame
It covers us in our vulnerability
And we don’t have to face the world
The coat is our investment
And we are reluctant to give that up

Eventually we may come to a great palace
Where to enter is our greatest longing
A longing beyond all other earthly longings
At the entrance we are met by a doorman
Who says ‘May I have your coat please?’

Photo by Velizar Ivanov on Unsplash