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impostor settle for life in such a diminished form? First, because repressed memories from childhood that laid the pattern for self-deception are too painful to recall and thus remain carefully concealed. Faint voices from the past stir vague feelings of angry correction and implied abandonment. Masterson’s summary is appropriate: “The false self has a highly skilled defensive radar whose purpose is to avoid feelings of rejection although sacrificing the need for intimacy. This system is constructed during the first years of life, when it is important to detect what would elicit the mother’s disapproval.” [8]
    The second reason the impostor settles for less life is plain old cowardice. As a little one, I could justifiably cop a plea and claim that I was powerless and defenseless. But in the autumn of my life, strengthened by so much love and affection and seasoned by endless affirmation, I must painfully acknowledge that I still operate out of a fear-based center. I have been speechless in situations of flagrant injustice. While the impostor has performed superbly, I have assumed a passive role in relationships, stifled creative thinking, denied my real feelings, allowed myself to be intimidated by others, and then rationalized my behavior by persuading myself that the Lord wants me to be an instrument of peace . . . at what price?
    Merton said that a life devoted to the shadow is a life of sin. I have sinned in my cowardly refusal   —out of fear of rejection   —to think, feel, act, respond, and live from my authentic self. Of course, the impostor “argues relentlessly that the root of the problem is minor and shouldbe ignored, that ‘mature’ men and women would not get so upset over something so trivial, that one’s equilibrium should be maintained even if it means placing unreasonable limits on personal hopes and dreams and accepting life in a diminished form.” [9]
    …
    We even refuse to be our true selves with God   —and then wonder why we lack intimacy with Him. The deepest desire of our hearts is for union with God. From the first moment of our existence, our most powerful yearning is to fulfill the original purpose of our lives   —to see Him more clearly, love Him more dearly, follow Him more nearly, as the old prayer says. We are made for God, and nothing less will really satisfy us.
    C. S. Lewis could say that he was “surprised by joy,” gripped by a desire that made “everything else that had ever happened . . . insignificant in comparison.” Our hearts will ever be restless until they rest in Him. Jeffrey D. Imbach, in The Recovery of Love , wrote, “Prayer is essentially the expression of our heart longing for love. It is not so much the listing of our requests but the breathing of our one deepest request, to be united with God as fully as possible.” [10]
    Have you ever felt baffled by your internal resistance to prayer? By the existential dread of silence, solitude, and being alone with God? By the way you drag yourself out of bed for morning praise, shuffle off to worship with the sacramental slump of the terminally ill, endure nightly prayer with stoic resignation, knowing that “this too shall pass”?
    Beware the impostor!
    The false self specializes in treacherous disguise. He is the lazy part of self, resisting the effort, asceticism, and discipline that intimacy with God requires. He inspires rationalizations such as “My work is my prayer; I’m too busy; prayer should be spontaneous, so I just pray when I am moved by the Spirit.” The false self’s lame excuses allow us to maintain the status quo.
    The false self dreads being alone, knowing “that if it would become silent within and without, it would discover itself to be nothing. It would be left with nothing but its own nothingness, and to the false self which claims to be everything, such a discovery would be its undoing.” [11]
    Obviously, the impostor is antsy in prayer. He hungers for excitement, craves