Intimacy, perving, and vivisection, yeah we got that.

I haven't posted in a couple weeks, mostly because I didn't have anything deep and spiritual or shallow and offensive to say. The truth is I would have settled for slightly pervy and uncomfortable, but it's soooo hard to find the right balance with that stuff, the truth is I'm almost oblivious to the boundaries. Not that I don't know when I'm being a perv or guided by "inappropriate" motives, I'm always aware of that and eventually get around to correcting the issue, I mean I can't fix that I'm a guy, but I do my best to limit the damage. The thing that gives me mental whiplash is the apparent reality that I only give off the "perv" vibe when I'm indifferent and harmless, at least those are the only times I'm called out on it.

If a surgically enhanced bombshell, defying both nature and gravity, comes bounding out of the surf in my direction the chances of me looking at her eyes are slim to none. If I get slapped, or if her boyfriend is there, gets pissed, and throws down... fair play. This has never happened to me. What has happened you ask? Well, I've been walking through a crowd after a pro-life march, and while I crane my neck around in all directions looking for my folks, get accosted by a group of young girls who accuse me of learning at them... seriously? I'm not saying that had I been a 14 yr. old boy this wouldn't have been the case, I'm just saying this couldn't have been further from my thoughts or intentions at the time. Then there was that time I got dragged out of church by someone I thought was my friend and watched as he did everything he could to keep from trying to beat me up (I say "try" because, lets be honest, I'm pretty freaking spectacular... and humble). It took me a few moments to realize he wasn't joking around and he actually thought I was trying to steal his wife away from him. I still remember the feeling of staggering around in confusion wondering what just happened and if there could possibly be any truth to what he was saying. I can laugh off most things, but this one is still hard for me. Oh, by the way, I wasn't trying to steal or insult his wife. The only people as confused by the incident as myself are the friends who know me well............

and this is why I don't do free association blogging

.......... okay, right so... deep and spiritual... I guess my point is this: actually being "known" is freaking rare. People interpret you through their own expectations and experiences, as if you are a character in their own play. I know I do this as well, kinda like a paleontologist (thanks Friends for that word getting locked in my memory) adding muscles, skin, and behavior patterns to a pile of bones someone else found under a rock somewhere. We take what we are given and we add to it until we get something we feel comfortable classifying and relating to. My close friends, the ones I value and would do almost anything for, are the ones who know the real me, or at least enough of the real me to not place me in the cretaceous period.

For all of the spiritual experiences I've had, from the cool and fun to heartbreaking and difficult, the one that anchors me in my relationship to God is the one where he made it clear the depth to which he knows me. There wasn't any fire or lightning, no one walked on water, and there were no audible voices, but I knew God was looking into the core of my being in a way that created an intimacy refusing definition, and said "I know exactly who you are, I know the deep things about your personality and desires, the things you yourself are unaware of, I know everything you have done and thought, and I love you." I was split open and raw in a way that makes vivisection and that dream about going to school/work naked, Disney-like in comparison - that said, I would LOVE to see Sesame Street do an episode on both those topics. I was raw and known by God in every way possible, and him knowing me that way made me love in a way I didn't know possible.

The irony is the curse associated with that long moment of intimacy, nothing else compares. Even in the best of my human relationships, in reality or in hopes, I'm always left knowing there is something more.