"Afro-romance. Where love is more than skin deep"
This is what I learned while preparing to write my biomechanics paper (which consisted of me procrastinating 10 minutes on stumbleupon, which had this ad of two amorous people( a black woman and a white man) in various states of undress on the side bar). Apparently, dating outside your race gives you better moral constitution. At the very least, it makes you less shallow.
Not that this ad really surprised me, because I'm bombarded with these types of idiotic messages every time I go to a website other than my email. It's just that this one made me laugh....reflect....then sober up. Generally I just ignore the invasion of subliminal (and not so subliminal) messages that fly at me every day, because they're obnoxious and generally sickening. But sometimes, the gravity of the situation hits me, and it makes me very angry, and forlorn.
What are we doing?
We're so confused. About love. About value. About who we are, who we aren't, and what we're here for. We're searching far and wide, trying so hard to be worth something. We want so badly to be noticed. We're so afraid of our selves, of being alone with all external props stripped away-with the only thing left standing being the bare knowledge of who are souls are-and who we aren't. We're in a race to forget who we are, or cover it up. With the knowledge we can't really eradicate the shameful parts of our self, we settle for behavior modification in hopes that someone will want who we seem to be instead of who we are. It's a mess. We, hopelessly broken, using other hopelessly broken people, in an effort to fill ourselves up. Self preservation. We want to soak up the last vestiges of something real, and something with true value, that ebbing remainder that slowly fades inside each one of us as we slowly sell ourselves away, a piece at a time, to the wolves that clamor to be filled. And to think-we do it in effort to fill ourselves. The last irony.We sell to get, but in the end we're cheated and empty.
It's a sad thing, to settle for something less than something real. To give up and stop striving after the truth, the only thing that ever had value, so we can save ourselves from the disillusionment that comes when we realize we are not perfect, and life is not fair. To enter into a game that really has no winners, only players; a game that you will win only to find that the definition of win changes with every success into something else to attain, to strive for, to chase fruitlessly after. Adopting the world's definition of success and value and achievement and victory and fulfillment and every other thing that our hearts quietly long for in the middle of our crazy, noisy polluted lives, it leaves you ridiculously wanting.
I really do long for that. I understand the cry all of society is screaming, because I find my voice among them, sometimes loudest, yelling itself hoarse in desperation. I long to be seen just as I am, with no external distraction of things I seem to be. Or want to be. Or try to be. I want to be seen, and I want to be loved in spite of being seen. And in the midst of acknowledging this, I started to wonder whatever gave me the crazy idea that this is even possible in the first place. Who would love me if they really knew me? I'm not even sure that I really love myself a lot of the time. The doubt that I will ever be seen and loved made me realize that most people don't even believe they will. They want to. They're dying to. Some would kill themselves to. But they don't. That's why we are so desperate, so willing to find any temporary fill for the gaping hole that exists somewhere in the middle of our hearts. We don't believe we're worth it.
But I have a Father, and He's told me differently. And He shows me differently some days, when I ask Him to and I listen. And look. He'll tell you differently too, if you'll let Him. And I believe the crazy idea that even in being seen, I am loved. And I believe even in being broken, I am something beautiful, if only because I've been given beauty by love Himself. And I believe that I don't have to strive to be perfect, even though I struggle through all of the above every day. I believe. And, so much better than behavior modification....
that's life transforming truth. And it's mine
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