Saturday, January 2, 2010

Separation

Do you have anyone in your life that you maintain a very friendly relationship with, and even love very much, but below the surface there's actually a huge chasm between you? And furthermore, because you maintain a friendly relationship and love them very much, they're mostly unaware of the chasm, or just think its a little crack?

Have you ever had a moment with that person where you said just the right thing about just the right subject to cause a small landslide, forcing them to look down and take notice? All of a sudden they're like, "Oh, hey look! Chasm!" and you're standing there thinking, "Oh, I know, friend. I've always known." You're only about five feet apart, so they never noticed the separation before--just overlooked that gaping crevasse that makes you darn near unreachable to each other. Once you both know the chasm is there, you can do one of two things: you can build a bridge and cross it so that the closeness that you thought was there really can be there, or you can continue to walk parallel paths five feet apart, with a big crevasse in between. The latter is terribly frustrating, but it takes two to build that bridge.

Tonight my house is clean and dusted and mopped and scrubbed, the Christmas decorations are all put away and fasting has commenced. So I'm going to sit down, relax and try not to fall asleep while reading and thinking about how marvelous my life is.

1 comment:

Becky said...

beautifully said. what a wonderful analogy. and truthfully, sometimes there's nothing more healthy than allowing a chasm to be a chasm. i've decided that some relationships will be healed at a different time and place than this life. but that's just me and my life is filled with chasms...and i have little to no energy left to build bridges. again, i love the way you cover these kind of issues. well said. bb