When a Grown Man Shook

He must have been mid to late fifties, standing in front of forty people: some his peers, some younger even then he. There were only two things between him and his temporary audience - if one were to negate the distance as an object: a microphone and a piece of paper. This normal activity for someone such as myself was very foreign to this man, perhaps something that his fifty plus years had passed up altogether.

The piano began.

Trembling, he sang the words "Joyful Joyful, we adore thee..."

Why is it that a man with over double my life experience would fret so much over singing for such a limited audience? Why is it that this man dreaded so much to share this part of him with these people?

When a grown man shook, something occurred to me. This man dreaded this because it exposed something in him. There was no way this man could hide what was coming out of him. He could distort his sound a little from the microphone, perhaps he could even hide his face from the audience with that paper, but what the audience heard was the actual sound, the actual truth of what he was producing.

There was no way to beat around the bush, there was no way for him to tell the audience anything but the truth.

Me, I know how to lie. Even with my voice I can lie. I have worked for the greater portion of my life at figuring out how to mask the imperfections that lie in my voice. We are both afraid of the same thing, the difference is how we approach it: one shaking, the other faking.

How will you approach your fears this week? This month? Will you shake all the way through, telling the truth, or will you look confidently into the eyes of your present audience, the people you love, and lie?