We all sometimes feel disconnected when we see ourselves next to the vast interconnections of technology. The corridors of our own deepest and loneliest thoughts already had us in an abyss of facaded “neighborly” seclusion. Whispering in an intimate ear, or shouting from a thousand miles away it can seem like no one can hear what we need to say. Our doubts and perceptions of lack — of reflection from others can become a place of fear, which loosens the long fallen arch of the string between our tin-cup connections.
That’s what we long for after all; the nostalgia of those long gone ways of saying and hearing, “I love you” or having a fun and grateful moment with a true friend. Distance. So close yet so far away, as the old saying goes. Distance in the stores. Distance in a world gone to unknown ways, and distance across the void to a future we want to belong to; like the “belongings” of our memories, of the ways our lives once were. And, what is change — other than distance — from some memory, place, person, or time? Even if only one second ago, and only with ourselves we sometimes feel that the hands of time are upon us holding us back, when sometimes they are trying to push us forward. We have to move forward in life to reach for time’s hands which seem slow, yet move so quickly. One thing about the hands of time is they are always moving, and never stop.
Our sense of lost connection is perhaps a reflection of our own lack of motion in the face of time’s relentless aspiration. Sometimes we have to be made to run to catch that glimmer in someone’s eye we adore, or catch the hand of a friend we are running to on a train that has left the station, or jump to a boat that is leaving port as it edges slowly off the dock, because someone we love is on-board — maybe a whole world of people. You are never so lost as when you are lost; to what you are even lost to! But no matter how abstract our discomfort is, it is certainly the sensation of our belonging — painfully stretching so thin; it’s shrill warning that we must come forward to one another quickly, before it snaps.
No, we can never go back to one another, but must “come forward” to one another. This concept is what has us all so paralyzed. We have always gone back for things and people. It is difficult for most of us to understand we must “come forward” — go forward, to what there still is of what once was. If we can go forward, we may find that many have have gone before us, and they are there cheering us on in ways that feel like pain; a truthful sensation for such loss because we will not even leaning forward to look. Maybe we’re not lonely, but are just longing for that which others have already seen, but cannot see for us.
It’s hard to let go of our beautiful memories, especially without a placeholder, or even a promise, or an idea of “with what” would replace them. It’s hard even for faith to draw a bridge between those two covered mountaintops; the unknown places within ourselves, and an unknown future, that we cannot even begin to perceive. No matter how much it frightens us, that does seem to be the task at hand. A journey. The loneliest walk ever walked with the most people who never knew each other, themselves, or even where they were going, but by the hands of time we are commanded to march on. Life moves forward. Take action. It’s like a skip in the music of an old record player. You don’t stop dancing the catch the memory of how you moved your feet when the beat skipped. You just dance. Because when every quits dancing the musicians may stop playing.
Now is the time to reach farther than we have reached before. Some see, this as terrifying, and some see it as pure exhilaration. Maybe that bridge between the high mountain tops isn’t even there and we have to build it out of each other’s outstretched hands from one-another. This is the only explanation makes any sense to me. When there’s nothing left, but each other, every one of us will remember how much we love one another, and how truly in need we are of every soul on this planet. Now is the time, more than ever in history to offer everything you have to everyone. But also offer “your need” to anyone who will see the opportunity to help you as gift. Everyone is looking to grab a hand, or give a hand in this great bridge of faith. We are the bridge builders, and we are the bridge. There is no such thing as loneliness in a march of millions of people connected by disconnection.
Our fear of disconnection is a lie; you see we are afraid because this is the the most connected we have ever been — through needing each other. There is no connection greater than need. What is a community, except an effort to help those around us, or to be helped ourselves? The irony of self-reliance is that we only possess it to help others. And in this way, what we are afraid of is what we have not attained within ourselves. But the good news, like it or not is it doesn’t matter. We are all moving forward; going forward to what is new with ourselves, so that we may comprehend, that what we have lost was more of an illusion than what we are to gain. That’s what they once called faith.
Faith is the opposite of fear, and also its sweet remedy. Next to “damn sure” and “certain” faith is a reliable friend. Maybe if we are afraid enough, we will be there for others — until no one ever feels that way ever again.
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