One Email

I remember this one time I spoke, a few years later, to the people who had been the "in crowd" in our church youth group.  I was sitting in a living room with most of them.  And I felt unusually free to speak and not get shut down, for some reason.  So I spoke of not fitting in.  Feeling like a freak.  Feeling like what went on wasn't for me.  And they replied honestly and openly.  They told me, with a lot of feeling, that they'd felt exactly the same way I had. They'd all felt like freaks.  Like they didn't fit in.  They'd felt incredibly lonely.  Left out.  Even though they were running everything.  They'd strongly felt like people disapproved and didn't think they were good people.  They'd felt the sting of gossip.  And they felt like imposters, who, if people found out what they were really like, would fit even less.

    Nowadays, I often talk to people who are "out" of a Brethren group, either in terms of official membership, or just in terms of having moved on from it all a bit, in terms of thinking and feeling.  Getting free.  And these people too talk of the loneliness, the inability to connect to people, the not being able to find people to talk to who really get it.  How negatively others view them.  The gossip.  All of that.  And how there's no one around to really help out with that.  How they feel alone in being so alone.

   Today, I asked an "in" person what was hard for him about being "in."  And he answered honestly.  He didn't intend it, but his answer really broke my heart.  That one email did, all by itself.  It seemed so familiar.  It made no difference that he was "in" and I was "out."  His email was exactly the same as any heart-breaking one from someone who is "out" and feels discarded and abandoned.  He didn't feel discarded or abandoned, but there was, in the dogged determination to make the sacrifices to "stay," but keenly feel the cost of it, something terribly sad.  It was all there.  Not fitting in.  Loneliness. No one to talk to who really gets it.  No one "left."  Difficulty connecting with the "in" people and difficulty connecting with "outsiders" too.  People judging and thinking badly of him and his. The dry, sterile emptiness there.  Pat answers and dismissals from people who were supposed to be helpful.  The gossip.  It just sounded the same as everyone else.  Apparently everyone's feeling alone and disconnected. 

   It's so dumb that all of this "in" and "out" and "left" and "stayed" actually works to keep us apart.  Why are we apart?  Why do we feel awkward about talking to each other?  None of the dividedness is real.  It's all a trick.  Designed to keep us believing we're divided; to keep us alone.

   We're not.  Not alone. There aren't real, insurmountable, genuine walls of division between us.  We are one.  And why is it so important to Evil that we be kept separate?  If we connected, if we related, if we understood people, and in turn felt related to and understood ourselves, love would win.  It would work.  Would be the order of the day.
   Evil can't cope with that idea.

  So undivide, everyone.  Phone people.  Ignore those pretend distinctions.  Reconnect.  Reach out.  To people you used to know.  To nearby people who we are to think of as "gone."  Stop sitting around feeling alone. You aren't.  We're easier to keep down, one at a time.  In pairs and trios and larger, we'll be unstoppable.

(note: this blog is intended to draw us together, and not to declare that staying "in" is bad, or not worth it, or that kind of thing. I am not seeking to crow and say "See?  People who stay "in" aren't happy!"  I'm not trying to leap upon what was shared and tell everyone all about it and declare the Brethren a sham, a horrible waste.  I'm trying to say it's hard either way and we should all talk.  That's all.)