No Exit

                Well, it’s pretty hot here on the East Coast – some might even say that it’s as hot as H-E-Double Hockey Sticks.  So I've decided to dedicate this blog entry to some thoughts about Huis Clos (No Exit), the 1944 existentialist play by Jean-Paul Sartre.  No Exit is a play about hell where hell consists of three people locked together for eternity in a room decorated in the style of the Second French Empire.  While only one character clings to the delusion that she doesn't belong in hell, all three are surprised with their accommodations – they expected fire, brimstone and various medieval torture devices.  By the end of the play, they’re begging for fire, brimstone and medieval torture devices.

                You see, the characters, who never knew each other in this life, realize that they've been hand-picked to spend eternity together because they make each other miserable.  Each person has certain habits or characteristics that drive another crazy, and each person wants something from another that he or she will never get.  Worse yet, each character realizes that their “being” – who they are – is defined by what other people think of them.  This conundrum prompts the most famous line of the play, “L’enfer, c’est les autres – Hell is other people.”  You may be nodding in agreement.

                But this way of thinking is unhealthy.  It’s the result of linking our self-worth and happiness to the whims or opinions of other people.  We do it all the time.  We strive to “keep up with the Joneses,” we fail to speak out against injustice for fear of being criticized or ridiculed, and we even knowingly make bad decisions to please other people.  I’m as guilty as anyone else.  I like peace at all costs – so I often won’t challenge people who are in the wrong because I don’t want them to be mad at me.  I’m also very self-conscious about my appearance; though I’m slowly accepting the fact that since I've hit middle age, time and gravity have wrested control of my appearance from my increasingly wrinkled hands.  I do still check my hair every time I pass a mirror, though.  When we base our self-worth on what we think others may think of us, we are perpetually unhappy.  We’re trapped in a world we have no control of.  There’s no exit.

                Or is there?  If we accept that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, we’ll come to understand that our dignity and self-worth are gifts that are bestowed on each of us by God.  No human being can take them away from us.  Let me repeat:  NO HUMAN BEING CAN TAKE OUR DIGNITY AND SELF-WORTH AWAY FROM US.  Our happiness, therefore, rests in our own hands.  It rests in our willingness to accept that we are loved; loved by a God who understands our weaknesses and works with them; loved by a God who needs nothing from us; and loved by a God who thinks we’re perfect just the way we are.  Accepting that God loves us for who we really are, warts and all, is extremely liberating and empowering.  Freed from the shackles of caring about other people’s opinions of us, we’re free to be the person God created us to be.  We’re free to be happy. 

Hell isn't other people.  Hell is the absence of God in our lives.  But God is always there waiting for us to return – waiting for us to be happy.  The door is open – we just have to walk through it.