it is friendship

Today I had to work a healthy 7 and a half hours on my day off. Oh joy. As I was running around in my shortened free time attempting to get all the necessities of the day done a lot of emotions ran through my head. I am not a person who accepts change very well, which is why I think I am so concerned about the future, I like to have things planned out and as few unknowns as possible. But that is beside the point. The point is that today I had to deal with the fact that all my plans had been canceled and I had to do something I didn’t have any desire to be doing at the moment. In my last few seconds of freedom I got a text from one of my nearest and dearest friends and all it said was “miss you :- )”. And that brought a smile to my face. As we planned a get together when she will be in town next and talked about my little sisters grad school auditions and how her semester was going, all of the sudden I felt like I had a huge pillow of comfort cushioning my loneliness that I felt earlier in the day. I since I know all my friends check on here to see what is going through my brain I wanted to give them a shout out and tell them how much I love them and how truly lucky I am to have each one of them in my life.

it is my answer to my question

A couple of weeks ago I was making a coffee run on a beautiful spring day (in January) to a small retreat center behind this pond (that they call a lake). This retreat center is owned by a local church organization that has kindof taken over our town. They are not bad people and without them economically our town would have died a long time ago. Though I do often find myself disagreeing with their doctrine and theology. Thousands of people flock to this organization from all around the world. Which is cool because I get to meet people from all around the world. I have always wondered though what this "church" has that others don't. Its not really their theology, most non-denominational evangelical churches have many the same views. Its not their "colleges" unaccredited and taught by non PhD wielding smart-pantses. Its not their "prayer rooms" because really anyone can pray anywhere in the universe at any point in time. So what is it? Throughout recent history the Judea-Christian religion has always had some sort or "movement" running through it. And they always come in like the tide and go out the same way. But again my question has been why? Why the Jesus movement in the 60's and 70's, revival tents in the 30's and 40's (and then some)? As I was driving to the little house on the pond it hit me. A sense of belonging. That is why these people flock to this establishment. They are welcome as long as they fit into their click. There were neighbors talking having heated religious debate, joggers praying, a lady walking and reading her Bible. And that was it, these people were longing for a sense of belonging, that someone else is like them and that they know where that person is coming from, that they share their pain. We all as humans are constantly trying to fit in with people, since we were very little. As soon as are parents shoved us out into the great big world of play dates, day care, preschool etc we have tried to find friends, fit in with the crowd. In high school it is painfully evident, the clicks, the popular kids vs the outcasts, drama vs music. Hopefully as we get older we establish our own list of beliefs values morals etc. But there is still that need to not be alone. Say I believe that all paper should be pale yellow while the rest of the world seems to think white is the answer to all professional uses of paper. OK so I am at a paper convention and everyone is talking about how great paper is and how beautiful and crisp white a new package of xerox is, I'm not going to step out and say hey, wouldn't it be great if all paper was a tad yellow. No, bad example. I guess what I am trying to say is I get it, I finally get it. I understand why these people follow blindly after their leader, why they flock to one location to sit and wait for further guidance. Its because they feel like in this little corner of the world they belong, they have a purpose in something bigger than themselves, they feel like they have a community around them that will support them throughout the rest of their lives here on earth. And really who can blame them because don't we all do that in our own lives, even if in very small ways?

it is a sad portrayal

I went last night to go see He's Just Not that into you with my girlfriends and it was a terrible film I don't recommend anyone go and see it. Every single man in this film was an unmitigated ass. They tied much of their relationships around sex whether or not he or she was sleeping with you and at what point in the dating relationship should you have sex with a person and if that was not happening then you should probably get out of said relationship because that mean he/she doesn't like you. And why were these girls having groping make out sessions on the first meeting? Not even date but random meetings in bars. Don't they know that that is how most women are raped murdered beaten and dumped in central park? As a whole it made you want to swear off men feeling that all of them would eventually cheat on you, lie to you, turn into couch potatoes and not care about you and that all men were basically horny beasts. If I were a man I would be furious to be portrayed in such a light. As a single female I felt very happy to be single and not have to deal with their view of the dating scene. The single girls in this movie had such a lack of confidence in themselves they were pathetic. Every single one of them tied their identities into whether or not they had a man. Is that really what single-dom is about? I thought we where empowered women who don't need a man. Where we can fight for equal rights in the work place, that we did not need a man to tell us we are great, we are on our own. That our relationships were relationships of equals. Well apparently i was horridly mistaken.