joecraveman

My embarrasing moment

As luck would have it, the embarrasing moment I spoke of in my last post has been captured forever on film. Enjoy it as much as I didn't.

Embarrassing

Embarrassing, to say the least. Sharing your heart with someone that you think you can trust, only to find that the one you trust is not much more than a machine with a voice.

I can't tell you how difficult it is to open up, when the one you open up to is more interested in whether or not you care to super-size your order. Commerce and fast transactions have left little time for sharing the windows of the soul, and I'm not sure we're any better off for it.

JJ is a friend of mine who has shared her story via my videologs - she recently took a job at Starbucks. The church I've been frequenting recently placed her image on a series of postcards to coincide with their fall grand opening of a new building, and as she was working the Starbucks drive-thru, a woman in her car received her latte, looked at JJ, and exclaimed, "You're in my mailbox!" Celebrity = community?

So there are touchstones. But in the end, I think that lady just wanted her latte.

Still alone.

This post is to thank all of the commenter's who have encouraged me along the way. I truly appreciate it. I actually took some of your advice and tried to practice what you suggested. I ended up going to help out local soup kitchen and it was an interesting experience. I met a lot of different people and got to have some pretty amazing conversations.

But when I walked away at the end the day I still felt empty. I guess to go serve people feels good in the moment and I even patted myself on the back because I was helping people, but then I came back to this realization and it was this; I continually, throughout the day, found meaning in myself. I was serving the poor and in fact I was doing a good thing but it didn't help. I still walked away with the reality that even though I helped other people I was still alone. I was still unconnected, because I was serving for the small fact of selfishness. I went into that soup kitchen wanting to take something away from it. I still walked away alone.

So I am still alone in this world and I don't want to be anymore. I want a purpose and I want a community to be apart of. This world is full of men and women who are so willing to judge and scorn a community that seems to be failing. I have encountered these people all of my life. These are the kind of people who have gotten lost in their own dreams and have faltered along the way. They lose the dream to want to accomplish something and they are found to be simple cynics. People who would rather criticize something then try to make it better.

In my self discovery I have realized that I am one of those people. I am a man who is lost in this world and lost in my deteriorated dreams. Thus, it is easier to build walls, and block everyone out because I have felt such pain. But no one seems to know this pain because I hide it. I seem to be alone because I see that there are three realities in this world.

First option: we are all alone and unconnected. We have nothing to truly live for. There is no God and we were randomly put together through the process of Evolution. We have no possibility to be intimate because there is nothing that truly connects us. We have no meaning because there is nothing to live for. And we have no destiny because future doesn't truly exist. We are a lost world and we are pointless beings needing nothing but to survive.

Second Option: We are connected but the thing that connects us is our own humanity. We are inevitably God himself and can accomplish everything that needs to be accomplished. We are all we have as a large world and we can, in time solve all our own problems. Our intimacy stems only from what we think intimacy can be. We have purpose but it comes from our own individual desires. Our future only looks better from where we stand now because humanity is constantly advancing.

Third option: We are connected because something bigger has connected us. Something like God has put us together and has a bigger plan for us. You can call it Allah, Yahweh, Jesus, or Buddha, but something has connected us. This kind of God has always been there, since the beginning. Our world and our existence stems from this God and our purpose is found in his will. Our intimacy is connected with this God and this God connects all of us together. Our future is found in what this God has determined it to be in one way or another.

So I have come to these three broadened conclusions. While there are probably a lot more details to these three ideas these are the three that seem to make the most sense to me. However, I don't know which one of these to find my identity in.

I seem to still be alone.

My first Weblog

Here's my first weblog. I'm trying to figure out this whole "intimacy" thing when it comes to my soul cravings... Let me know what you think and how you might be able to help me!

Does love conquer all?

All you need is love.
- John Lennon & Paul McCartney

At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.
- Plato

Bart, with $10,000, we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like...love!
- Homer Simpson

Hatred can be overcome only by love.
- Mahatma Gandhi

I keep coming back to this reality that love has something to do with intimacy. This idea and reality of love is historically famous. Everyone seems to have some sort of idea of what love is and how love can impact humanity.

But love seems to have lost it's power. It seems to have shifted as the culture has shifted. It is no longer something pure. Love has been blotted out by the ink of selfishness.It has become transactional. 'I will give as long as there is a promise of getting something in return.'

Is this the way we look at love? I guess it would make sense of why marriage has become so rare. No one needs to get married anymore because they just move in and have kids without the promise of being selfless. I feel like these are the new vows that are being presented by the world;

"As long as they don't have to promise my life away at the altar than I will spend some time with you.

As long as I don't have to become truly vulnerable with you in this relationship than I will attend your family parties.

As long as I can protect myself for fear that you might cause me pain and walk away at the end of the night I will share certain things with you.

Don't ask me to be intimate with you. I can't give you that. Don't ask me to share my full life with you. There is too much risk in that. There is to much of a chance that at the end of the night your love will turn into hatred."

These vows are being said to not only our mates but are being said to our children as well. We no longer want to be parents that get to know our children. We don't want to connect with them in a way that is true and real but busy ourselves with the work that holds us hostage at the office. We put televisions and computers in our children's rooms to distract them from a real relational intimacy. We then come to find that our children are becoming raised by the culture that has so distorted a pure love and they become whores and drunks.

i think it comes down to the fact that none of us know how to connect with this intimacy. I don't know where to go to find this trueness. I have never seen it lived out in my peers or in my own parents. I guess we are just living what we were taught.

There's gotta to be more than this. There has to be an answer to this craving that I feel inside. Where to look? I guess my best bet is to try and find people who know what they are doing. Any suggestions? Who should I talk to?

Looking for the Legacy

My internal organs lit on fire when I saw it happen.

I went to a Sox game last week and I saw a short exchange that would be worth much more than each party would realize until much later. It was between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, a mother and a father, two lovers. He leaned in and whispered a secret that was obviously only known by the two of them. She smiled and then they kissed. That short exchange hopefully will last them longer than it did me.

I still long for that. There is that intimacy that I just can't truly grasp.

I guess I'm longing for something more than a short lived moment. I want an intimacy that will leave a legacy on the people that are around me. I don't know how to find it though. I don't know where to start.

Plus I don't know if I truly want it. I mean, to really grasp that kind of intimacy I'm sure there is a point where the other party knows you. I'm not just talking about knowing in a mental sense, but in a whole sense. The other party has got to know you not by the role you play but by your whole identity. I don't know if I want someone to know my whole identity. I'm not the nicest guy. When I look back on my life there are certain situations that sear in my mind that I know I would not want someone to know.

But I guess that whole vulnerability thing is determined by who the other party. If the other party is a person I know that I will never truly become vulnerable with. I would look like a monster. If this other party is something else, if it's some sort of God who is caring than I might want that. The question is where to start to find it? There are so many places to go to find myself.'

I guess I could start with what I am most familiar with. I was reading the news and discovered that Ingmar Bergman recently died at the age of 89. He is noted to be one of the greatest film makers in the history. He is known to be a man who sought to make films that challenged the profound themes of life. He is a legend and his work will remain in the movies that he created. He knew intimately what he wanted to do with each film. He created it with a purpose and a mission.

I want to understand the legacy of intimacy. I want to find it.