a good man is hard to find

well if the only true currency is what we share when being uncool then last night i was rich...

this will be a little incoherent - i wrote much it while exhausted last night and tonight i am again tired... so forgive me if this is less than eloquent... but consider it me aiming to be uncool and honest...

toward six pm yesterday i practically fell into common grounds... barely able to stand...i don't mean existentially, but physically... stressed to the hilt and hardly capable of holding up my own weight after a day with only one cup of shite coffee in me and more stress than i knew what to do with... i stumbled through the door feeling like i had no more strength to keep going...the resident basket case was ready to give up... collapse in the ditch...with so much change ahead i was paralysed in panic...

sometimes the act of friendship is in the giving...gareth showed the true measure of a man... he literally took me out of my place of immobility on the sofa, took me for a steadying drink and we worked out together how to practically deal with the multitude of changes and decisons that had me overwhelmed...

he saw my vulnerability, my wound-up-ness, my terror at not feeling like i was in control of my life... and he embodied commitment to friendship... and my part was to accept what he was offering... solidarity and practical assistance... we'll work this out together... let's look at what we can solve and how we're gonna do it together and how we deal with the stuff that doesn't have easy practical answers...

here we are wandering in the desert... i stumbled... tripped up over my feet... and here was a good man... who turned and offered his hand... picked me up and sat me down by the roadside and helped me redraw the map... reminded me of the others on the road... named the people who i can count on...one of those is jayne...

feeling restored, and all the stuff that had felt like a tsunami of change now a series of challenges to be dealt with not by myself but with the support and comradeship of a team of fellow travellers, jayne and i had a great discussion about what it means to us now to be intentional toward our 'for want of a better word community'... to be committed... that we are living out the practical realities of caring for one another with intention.. the stakes are being upped... this is where we start putting our money where our mouth is... where we become more like family than friends... where we learn to trust and to receive... to ask for help...to trust that when we are lying with our face in the dust that there are those who will help you back on your feet...where we start to make joint decisions...

community... i believe it is the living act of intertwining your life with others... and letting others weave their life into yours... of bearing each others burdens...

it is one thing to be told that you are priceless, it is another when you are treated like you are... i was treated last night by gareth with love in action... and my loving repsonse had to be to accept his help...because sometimes friendship is not in the giving but in the receiving... of allowing others not just in behind your walls but to actually let them help you heal... chris and i have been talking about the idea that there are fault lines within us... they are caused by the shite life throws at you.. the rejection, the deaths, the hurts, the neglect...it is not your fault they exist but if we are not careful they control us... and we act out of them, our fault lines cause us to hurt others...we may not mean it, but we do... at some point in our life we have to start dealing with those fault lines...taking responsibility for them... healing them...so today i finally got booked into see a therapist...i know there are several of my beloveds who are rejoicing at this news... and yup, i am really bloody glad i've had the courage to do it...and i'm gonna look at this way: this is not simply going on a journey to heal the cracks, it is a journey towards embrace the light that seeps through those fault lines... from without and within...

community is maybe this: that as we travel this road, when one stumbles, the group stops, no one runs on ahead...one for all, and all for one... it is not about you and i but about ::us::

ben said tonight he'd been reading colossians...that love is what binds the universe together... that god is that love... i want to help in the binding... and i want to be bound... held in its forcefield... we are the kingdom... we are the promised land...even in the desert i already have that which i seek... it is my fellow wanderers... the ones who are linking hands and saying we are broken... beyond saving ...loving one another... intentionally... with commitment... maybe... maybe there IS hope...

if i do not have love i am but an empty shell... so come on, seep into my cracks... let me feel the light...because i want to be healed.