TIGHTening
Are you lonely? Are you like me?
Do you find yourself in a hundred conversations every day? Do you see dozens of faces? Smile? Laugh with friends? Share things? Share meals? Drinks? Then, you find yourself in a solitary moment with the defining ache that never goes away these days. It barely seems to ebb any more.
We are together, but we are alone.
I'm finding the space around me grows greater. I'm finding the intimacy in my tiny circle has become miniscule...nearly non-existent. I fight for it and it bites back at me...like a vicious snake, denying me entrance. Indeed, when I look for intimacy amongst humans these days, I feel rejection. Very few want it. We feel alone.
I am alone. You are alone. Actually, we are deluded. Not one of of us is alone. Not even one.
I listen to the children I see every week. There is at least forty of them on any given week. I come home to four more every evening.
This is what they are saying:
"I'm growing up too fast"
"Time is going by so quickly"
"Kids are mean"
"Grown-ups are in a hurry"
"I can't say what I think, because someone won't like it and will hurt me."
"I'm too busy."
"I need rest."
"I don't have any time."
There is a revolution. We are in it. It is spinning faster and faster. The RPM's are becoming almost undetectable. Only those of us that haven't been here very long, the young, can see that the speed is increasing and I listen to them. What they say is not encouraging....not at all.
This revolution, this centrifuge, does what they all do. It separates. It divides. That is why your circle is tightening. That is why you are alone in this "crowd". "Alone" is the term of delusion. It is not true. It only feels that way. Feelings change. Intimacy exists. It is not a feeling. It is a reality you and I must fight harder than ever to find because things are speeding up and time will not last forever. Some would say it is "winding down" but I (and the Truth I believe in) would say it is speeding up and will one day explode into oblivion as it's been destined to do. The children see it. Even the children who don't know the Truth yet, recognize the change. Do you?
You're not alone. Someone, something is breathing down your neck. If you dwell in the loneliness...if you refuse to resist it for a little while you will feel it, sense it, that intimacy that is calling you.
People like me can barely stand the solitary, where intimacy will eventually find you. There were so many years where I encumbered myself with busyness to avoid it. I would even resist sleep because there were those moments in the night when the pangs of loneliness would come to me and I could not bear them. So I avoided the night with busyness til I was exhausted.
I am older now and I have come through fire since then. I am finally starting to weaken. Some of that weakening is intentional but I feel often like that captured wild animal that I occasionally found as a child. Most often it was wounded and when I held it, it would struggle for freedom at first. Then, it would settle..sometimes for hours, only to return to the struggle as its instincts beckoned it to return somehow to the life it had always known. I think of the Israelites in the wilderness and how in their struggles they often longed to return to lives of slavery in Egypt. Sometimes, I want to go back, but before I longed to go back every moment of every day and every night. Now, the pang is only occasional if still strong and it is encouraged, sparked by the revolution I am in.
Who is breathing down your neck? Quiet yourself. Endure the pangs and wait. Do you feel fear? Do you feel longing? Do you want to run? Are you content to wait? Do you need to speak? To lavish affection? To feel connected? To feel loved? Are you angry now? Do you want to scream at the sky? Think of the failures and the sorrows of the past? Do you feel sorrow for yourself? For those you love who must know you? Are you depressed? Are you calm? Do you have anxiety? Are you eager for the future?
Answering the above questions will determine who is breathing down your neck. WHO is calling you to intimacy? Someone is. You must decide. The space around you is tightening. Intimacy will determine who you cling to in this revolution.
Fear claims to be your friend. It promises to keep you safe...to help you flee danger and hardship. It says that protection is found in hiding and in setting boundaries and backup plans and insurance. Fear promises that the key to security and intimacy in your circle is preparation and forethought, hesitancy and panic....stress and anxiety
Love claims loyalty...total servitude. It requires you to pour out your life fearlessly. It asks you to devote yourself to humility and the wellbeing of those that suffer and those that seem not to. It wants you to embrace hardship and danger and struggle. It claims that the only purpose in this life is to show others that in fact it (love) is what they were made for. It wants you to keep nothing, to think of nothing of yourself and everything of those around you...in fact to see the gold in the heart of each man and woman. It believes that safety and security lie not in anything you can do but in its own capacity to care for you as you care for others. Your body, your mind, your heart and your spirit were made to endure and to overcome adversity and sorrow and the revolutions of time. In fact, most of you was made to live forever and the only way this can happen is through the power of love.
I recently began listening to some lectures online from people of notable influence and prominence. These people were remarking on how their rise to success and fame was unfulfilling. They even seemed surprised and shocked when they found that laying down their lives...making themselves vulnerable...pouring out their wealth ,and associating with the "lowest of the low", had in fact been the "most satisfying" venture of their lives. They claimed fulfillment and enlightenment. They claimed the trajectory of their lives had in fact changed..that they had found purpose. Love found them and they discovered what they were really made for. Speaker after speaker acknowledged they were finally on the path to life....the "straight and narrow" and I KNOW who they'll end up meeting!
Love has been calling us since the foundation of the world. Even those who haven't met its author have begun to recognize its call, because of the tightening. Fear gripped us upon our entrance to this planet. It had no hold before our earthly births. It is not eternal. It is temporary, for all of us.
Do you see the difference? Where will love find me? In the grip of fear? Can I wait long enough? I am impatient and I grasp that which instinctually grips me in my solitary. Love is outside of time and space and fear is NOT. Love comes gently. Fear grips mercilessly. My instincts are earthly; a mother's protection, a woman's "fight or flight", a wife's need to feel covered and secure. These things are nearly instantaneous in my solitary but love comes softly and gently and when it lands on me I weep for the beauty and the joy I feel in that moment. Even as I am in the midst of it the instincts are pressing on me to leave to never stop moving, to continue the fight of the "Captured animal"
You and I don't belong here. That is why the revolution feels out of control...spinning, trapping us. We are trapped in these bodies in this chaotic society but He is coming for us. All the while, Fear and Love are after us...breathing down our necks in our quiet. We must choose. You and I must choose...over and over. We have SO many chances. All the while, we spin and we spin....faster and faster. Our circles are tightening.
JM 2016
"But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn't really being slow about keeping His promises, as some people think. No, He is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent." - 2 Peter 3:9
Do you find yourself in a hundred conversations every day? Do you see dozens of faces? Smile? Laugh with friends? Share things? Share meals? Drinks? Then, you find yourself in a solitary moment with the defining ache that never goes away these days. It barely seems to ebb any more.
We are together, but we are alone.
I'm finding the space around me grows greater. I'm finding the intimacy in my tiny circle has become miniscule...nearly non-existent. I fight for it and it bites back at me...like a vicious snake, denying me entrance. Indeed, when I look for intimacy amongst humans these days, I feel rejection. Very few want it. We feel alone.
I am alone. You are alone. Actually, we are deluded. Not one of of us is alone. Not even one.
I listen to the children I see every week. There is at least forty of them on any given week. I come home to four more every evening.
This is what they are saying:
"I'm growing up too fast"
"Time is going by so quickly"
"Kids are mean"
"Grown-ups are in a hurry"
"I can't say what I think, because someone won't like it and will hurt me."
"I'm too busy."
"I need rest."
"I don't have any time."
There is a revolution. We are in it. It is spinning faster and faster. The RPM's are becoming almost undetectable. Only those of us that haven't been here very long, the young, can see that the speed is increasing and I listen to them. What they say is not encouraging....not at all.
This revolution, this centrifuge, does what they all do. It separates. It divides. That is why your circle is tightening. That is why you are alone in this "crowd". "Alone" is the term of delusion. It is not true. It only feels that way. Feelings change. Intimacy exists. It is not a feeling. It is a reality you and I must fight harder than ever to find because things are speeding up and time will not last forever. Some would say it is "winding down" but I (and the Truth I believe in) would say it is speeding up and will one day explode into oblivion as it's been destined to do. The children see it. Even the children who don't know the Truth yet, recognize the change. Do you?
You're not alone. Someone, something is breathing down your neck. If you dwell in the loneliness...if you refuse to resist it for a little while you will feel it, sense it, that intimacy that is calling you.
People like me can barely stand the solitary, where intimacy will eventually find you. There were so many years where I encumbered myself with busyness to avoid it. I would even resist sleep because there were those moments in the night when the pangs of loneliness would come to me and I could not bear them. So I avoided the night with busyness til I was exhausted.
I am older now and I have come through fire since then. I am finally starting to weaken. Some of that weakening is intentional but I feel often like that captured wild animal that I occasionally found as a child. Most often it was wounded and when I held it, it would struggle for freedom at first. Then, it would settle..sometimes for hours, only to return to the struggle as its instincts beckoned it to return somehow to the life it had always known. I think of the Israelites in the wilderness and how in their struggles they often longed to return to lives of slavery in Egypt. Sometimes, I want to go back, but before I longed to go back every moment of every day and every night. Now, the pang is only occasional if still strong and it is encouraged, sparked by the revolution I am in.
Who is breathing down your neck? Quiet yourself. Endure the pangs and wait. Do you feel fear? Do you feel longing? Do you want to run? Are you content to wait? Do you need to speak? To lavish affection? To feel connected? To feel loved? Are you angry now? Do you want to scream at the sky? Think of the failures and the sorrows of the past? Do you feel sorrow for yourself? For those you love who must know you? Are you depressed? Are you calm? Do you have anxiety? Are you eager for the future?
Answering the above questions will determine who is breathing down your neck. WHO is calling you to intimacy? Someone is. You must decide. The space around you is tightening. Intimacy will determine who you cling to in this revolution.
Fear claims to be your friend. It promises to keep you safe...to help you flee danger and hardship. It says that protection is found in hiding and in setting boundaries and backup plans and insurance. Fear promises that the key to security and intimacy in your circle is preparation and forethought, hesitancy and panic....stress and anxiety
Love claims loyalty...total servitude. It requires you to pour out your life fearlessly. It asks you to devote yourself to humility and the wellbeing of those that suffer and those that seem not to. It wants you to embrace hardship and danger and struggle. It claims that the only purpose in this life is to show others that in fact it (love) is what they were made for. It wants you to keep nothing, to think of nothing of yourself and everything of those around you...in fact to see the gold in the heart of each man and woman. It believes that safety and security lie not in anything you can do but in its own capacity to care for you as you care for others. Your body, your mind, your heart and your spirit were made to endure and to overcome adversity and sorrow and the revolutions of time. In fact, most of you was made to live forever and the only way this can happen is through the power of love.
I recently began listening to some lectures online from people of notable influence and prominence. These people were remarking on how their rise to success and fame was unfulfilling. They even seemed surprised and shocked when they found that laying down their lives...making themselves vulnerable...pouring out their wealth ,and associating with the "lowest of the low", had in fact been the "most satisfying" venture of their lives. They claimed fulfillment and enlightenment. They claimed the trajectory of their lives had in fact changed..that they had found purpose. Love found them and they discovered what they were really made for. Speaker after speaker acknowledged they were finally on the path to life....the "straight and narrow" and I KNOW who they'll end up meeting!
Love has been calling us since the foundation of the world. Even those who haven't met its author have begun to recognize its call, because of the tightening. Fear gripped us upon our entrance to this planet. It had no hold before our earthly births. It is not eternal. It is temporary, for all of us.
Do you see the difference? Where will love find me? In the grip of fear? Can I wait long enough? I am impatient and I grasp that which instinctually grips me in my solitary. Love is outside of time and space and fear is NOT. Love comes gently. Fear grips mercilessly. My instincts are earthly; a mother's protection, a woman's "fight or flight", a wife's need to feel covered and secure. These things are nearly instantaneous in my solitary but love comes softly and gently and when it lands on me I weep for the beauty and the joy I feel in that moment. Even as I am in the midst of it the instincts are pressing on me to leave to never stop moving, to continue the fight of the "Captured animal"
You and I don't belong here. That is why the revolution feels out of control...spinning, trapping us. We are trapped in these bodies in this chaotic society but He is coming for us. All the while, Fear and Love are after us...breathing down our necks in our quiet. We must choose. You and I must choose...over and over. We have SO many chances. All the while, we spin and we spin....faster and faster. Our circles are tightening.
JM 2016
"But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn't really being slow about keeping His promises, as some people think. No, He is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent." - 2 Peter 3:9
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