He had a mean streak, which often gave him considerable pleasure. Nor did he mind that the meanness was mirrored on his face. On the contrary, he thought it reflected the power he gained by creating fear. Besides, creating fear was more important to him than to be attractive to look at. That was until he saw Her in the marketplace.

     She was lovely. But more important, her appearance matched a sweetness and charm that took his breath away. Who was she? For the first time in his life he was reluctant to approach, certain she would be repelled by his face. So from a distance he continued to observe, then searched out who she was. He found out from her associates and neighbors that she was as good and generous a person as she was lovely. The more he discovered about Her, the more he wanted to be with Her. That of course was impossible with his mean face. But how could he change his face?

     It was during one of his trips to the marketplace to catch a glimpse of Her that he passed a shop with the sign BEAUTIFUL MASKS. That could be the solution! He went into the shop and was met by its strange soft-spoken owner. "I need a mask that shows me as an attractive, generous man."

     "Why?" asked the owner of the BEAUTIFUL MASKS.

     He explained his reason – what was required of the mask and why. "Can you create such a mask for me?"

     "Yes." Was the answer. "But understand, once you have put on the mask you may never take it off."

     And he didn't. Wearing the beautiful mask he was able to woo Her. Before long she happily became his wife. And because she loved him she accepted his declaration that it was impossible for him to take off the mask, that it was necessary for him to wear it day and night.

     Decades passed. Then one day she said, "You don't have to wear that mask with me. I love you for who you are, not for your beautiful mask."

     Could he do it? Could he admit the truth of the lie he had been living all these years? Would she understand that he would have done anything to be with Her, including wearing a mask day and night for years, for decades?

     Reluctantly he did it! He wanted Her to know the truth about him. He pulled off his mask.

     Her reaction was unexpected. There was a perplexed look on her face. Then she said, "I don't understand. Why did you wear a mask all these years, a mask that is exactly like your own face?"

     He couldn't believe it. Was this another manifestation of her love? He went to the mirror. He was stunned.

     For what he saw was a face staring back at him that was identical to the beautiful mask he had been wearing all these years.

     I read a version of this old fairy tale many years ago, shortly after learning to read at age twelve. The story has remained with me, although not its original source. Even at age twelve I understood that it was an allegory about the transforming power of love. Only much later did I recognize that, although almost unknown, it is one of the great redemption stories; the other was set to music and became the grand opera, Wagner's Parsifal. However, Parsifal is redeemed for merely repenting his sins; after his repentance he immediately dies. In contrast, in the BEAUTIFUL MASK, the sinner, inspired by love, lives his repentance by changing from a mean and frightening person to a loving one thereby earning his redemption.

     The BEATIFUL MASK is also a tale about how love and caring can make living a positive, constructive lie change that lie into the truth. That is what Susan, mother of five-year old Rolf understood as she harnessed his love for her to transform his difficult and negative personality. Not-so-affectionate relatives had labeled Rolf as born with a mean streak. "You could see the meanness in him even before he could talk," was their description. And once Rolf learned to talk he used his newfound language to express more of what relatives called his mean streak.

     But Susan felt sure that eventually she'd be able to reach Rolf. He was five years old when I watched as she explained to him, "This is how you do it." With that she gave him the exact words with which to say thank you to his grandmother, how to give a flower to his kindergarten teacher, how to apologize for one of his many misdeeds, etc. Again and again Rolf objected or even screamed "I hate . . ." "I don't want to," "Never, I won't." "It's a lie." Susan was persistent, explaining to her raging child; "I know you don't truly feel the thank you, etc. But eventually as you do it again and again, as you keep being kind to people your angry feelings will fade away. I assure you it will happen. Slowly you will be less angry as it becomes more fun to make others happy. And then you will become happy yourself."

     It was two years later, when Rolf was seven, that Susan entered my office beaming. "Rolf just told me he loves me. And not just with words, but with his eyes. He's never done that before. To tell the truth, I wasn't sure he loved me. But now it's happened." We talked for quite a while. And for the first time Susan admitted that she hadn't been as confident as she had claimed about getting the anger with its mean streak out of Rolf. But now: "His love for me will make it possible for him to at least pretend to be kind hearted. Even if it's not true right now, it will be eventually. The feedback he'll get from others, and just being kind will, with practice, make those feelings genuine."

     As our talk continued Susan told me she was taking Rolf out of school. At the time this was unusual, before our present successful homeschool movement. "I'm going to teach him at home for a while. Right now the school sees Rolf as an aggressive 'acting out' child. I don't blame them. But they've been really mean to him. And that's only made matters worse. Eventually we may put him back into another school where nobody will remember the old Rolf. That way he'll have a really fresh start."

     Very different from Rolf's was Kevin's early life. One of ten children his alcoholic father beat his wife and children with two-by-fours. The overextended mother had neither the time nor the power to counteract the effects of the abusive husband. Even though Kevin was a natural charmer there was a rage in him that manifested itself in both obvious and subtle ways. During elementary school, despite his obvious intelligence, and despite a teacher who went out of his way to help, Kevin "punished" the school by refusing to learn. As a result he was eventually shuttled off to a non-academic high school that closed off his chances for the higher education his active mind craved.

     Once free of school, Kevin's intelligence made it easy for him to become skilled with the latest in heavy machinery. He organized a small construction company that should have been a success. However, it ultimately folded mainly because he took revenge on his clients, for real or imagined slights, by encouraging his employees to do sloppy work for which he grossly overcharged. Kevin's satisfaction with his revenge games and the feelings of power they gave him were all too evident. In our talks, suggestions that usually it was he who paid the greater price for his power games, not his victims, were met with resentment. It was as though the mere idea demanded that he deprive himself of an important pleasure. And maybe that is indeed what rage and anger had become – pleasurable.

      Now in his fifties, despite charm and intelligence, Kevin had to take a local highway job to make up for his defunct construction company. Did that change the rage that kept finding sneaky ways to assert itself; ways that he associated with power? Alas, no. Each time he reaped the consequences of his anger more of it bubbled up. He made no attempt to hide his animosities, openly raging against those who had supposedly slighted him. As he explained it, "By expressing my feelings I'm preventing them from eating me up." After all, wasn't he articulating the popular belief that expressing your anger prevented it from festering?

     For many years many clinical psychologists shared the opinion that we should express our negative feelings. It seemed so logical. Facing one's anger and rage was hailed as a way to gain understanding and thereby achieve control over these emotions. But what happened all too frequently was not control. Instead, verbalizing rage and anger often led to feelings of justified hostility and antagonism. We found out that when we encouraged angry, aggressive children to articulate the reasons for their rage and anger they generally became more angry. Worse, some of the children developed a mean streak, which they associated with feelings of power.

     I have since wondered whether both Rolf and Kevin are possessors of the genes presumed to be involved in aggressive-confrontational behavior. Were they, as Rolf's not so kind relatives said about him, "born with a mean streak?" Of the two, Rolf would appear to be the one with more negative-aggressive genes, and therefore have an enhanced tendency to develop a "mean streak." Nor did he have Kevin's natural charm to smooth over difficult human interactions. Nature had not endowed him with an easy ability to mitigate the consequences he reaped for the pleasures he took in raging and hating. But Rolf had Susan for a mother.

     However, Kevin was not so fortunate. Under different circumstances would he have been able to use his intelligence as well as charm for a more productive and happy life? If his parents had taught him how to put on the beautiful mask, how to avoid associating power with his pleasure in raging, would the lie of the beautiful mask eventually have become the truth? And now, this late in life, is there hope for him? Our major religions maintain that salvation is always possible through love and repentance. But where will Kevin find the love? He has so much he could contribute.

     There's a resemblance here to the scientific question: "Must aggressive and destructive genes always manifest themselves. If not, under what circumstances will they fail to express themselves?" The data coming in are beginning to tell a story that resembles the tale of the BEAUTIFUL MASK. Not all children with the presumed aggressive and destructive genes end up acting out their "mean streak." There appear to be other, additional factors in order for the genes to express themselves. And one such factor is an aggressive abusive home. Nature and nurture are linked. Loving parents and a secure home can make a difference, especially when the genetic disposition would steer the child into the direction of destructiveness. My impression was that Rolf's negative disposition was almost overwhelming. It required especially hard work by dedicated and loving parents.

     But what happens when the abusiveness comes from the outside world? Wars, ever more terrible, have ravaged millions of lives leaving behind many raging souls. Gruesome television scenes seduce additional hapless minds to the satisfactions of raging hatred. And then there are our 20th and 21st century tyrants who have convinced their followers that by acting out raging hatred they gain power. These tyrants are representatives of the alternative allegory, the parable of Satan. But Satan, although claiming justifications for the pleasures of raging hatred with its accompanying sense of power, is not masked. He doesn't need a mask. He has no shame. Satan's true challengers are the wearers of the beautiful mask. Which is why the terrorists target aide workers, Doctors Without Borders, and UN officials, seeing them as the true alternative to their own domination and ascendancy.

     It is our love for others that gives us the reason to put on the BEAUTIFUL MASK. As Rolf demonstrated, the willingness and effectiveness in wearing the beautiful mask was a reflection of his love. After repeated loving and patient effort from Susan, his mother, and then from his father, Rolf's reluctant lies expressing a kindness he did not feel became genuine kindness. Susan had been right; Rolf's love for her would make the difference. It made him willing to put on the beautiful mask, even though he knew it to be a lie. Eventually the mask ceased to be a lie. By late adolescence there was no sign of the mean streak. He has become a happy, generous young man who bears no resemblance to the predictions of the not-so-complimentary relatives of years ago.

     None of us has by nature the beautiful face that corresponds to the BEAUTIFUL MASK. We're all flawed creatures, as well as wearers of some kind of mask, not all of which are pretty. But whatever mask we wear will eventually over time cease to be a lie and turn into the truth. By wearing the BEAUTIFUL MASK, even if it slips on occasion, we strive to escape from our ugly feelings and struggle not to live our flaws. Over the years and with great effort we can gradually achieve a resemblance to the BEAUTIFUL MASK, allowing us to create the person we want to become and that, eventually, is who we are.