Before Sunset

I just saw Before Sunset for the first time. Whew! That is one wonderful film. I have always adored Before Sunrise and seeing Before Sunset, its sequel, cemented their place as the undisputed #1 and #2 in my Top 10 movies, interchangeably. Anyone who loves those movies and has not found the love of their life is feeling me right now. Those movies just bring all those feelings right out of me. I’ve never experienced any story or anything that captures being in love like that and how two people can just really be a perfect fit for each other.

I really want that, as do countless other human beings. I’ve been feeling really lonely lately. I’m pretty starved for human contact. I mean, I get plenty of interaction at work with students and other teachers. Pretty much non-stop. But there’s very little depth to it. There are so many awesome, awesome kids there that I would love to get to know better and be friends with and be a mentor to and all that, but that’s probably not going to happen at all. They just zoom through my life every day. The teachers too. They’re all really nice and awesome, but it doesn’t seem like a deep friendship is developing there.

After work I just go back to my apartment and….write in my blog listening to Keith Jarret, among other things. Whatever I do at home I do alone. Getting out to see anyone on a weekday is tough because it’s often close to 10pm when I get home, and before work is the middle of most folks’ work day. So there’s the weekend. I could get out more than I do then. I have met and befriended some people but, except for one person, I haven’t really made a strong connection with anyone and gotten into many deeper conversations. It’s kind of seeing a few people at a few Baha’i events, but always different people showing up so I might see someone once a month or something. Plus just….developing close relationships doesn’t often happen quickly. In the meantime here I am, gazing into my computer screen yet again.

The fact that I’m communing with a blog at this moment instead of the love of my life does not sit well with me. It’s a test though. I have to learn to be patient about love! I mean I’m in a Year of patience for goodness sake! If I can’t see that I need to learn that lesson then I’m blind. But I do see. All my love relationships have been forced prematurely to deeper levels of intimacy by the vacuum of patience that existed in me at the time. That combined with other things doomed them.

Sometimes I worry that I’ve used up my all my chances at true love and I’m just going to have to wait this life out and experience those kinds of feelings (and much more) in the life to come. I mean it’s not like that hasn’t happened before! One of the things Celine said in Before Sunset is that when you’re young you feel sure that you’re going to meet many amazing people with whom you find a special connection. When that special connection happens to a young person they can easily take it for granted or be dissatisfied with it based on whatever ideals they have in their mind in the time or just plain mess it up. But the youth moves on, confident that bigger and brighter things await him or her. At a certain point, though, it seems life starts slowing down and it becomes harder to meet people and less people you meet have that energy that brings the life out in you and you start realizing that you may not meet a lot of people in this life that you have a profound connection with and with whom you can develop a deeper bond. It may be decades between such meetings. That point has come and gone for me and, like so many of the lessons I’ve learned, tempts me to dwell on what an abject fool I have been. Ignorant stupidity and stumbling drunken down the wrong path, and the agony that results in, just seem to be a part of life that is really hard to avoid though. I mean lots of people spend just about their whole lives in that state. Here I am reflecting on how I’ve been that way in the past and how I still am being a fool now. At least I’m aware of it! At least I’m trying to learn from it! That gives me hope.

I feel like an old man at 32. It’s just amazing how many experiences I’ve had! How many people I’ve known and places I’ve been and thoughts and feelings I’ve had. It’s like looking back on a whole lifetime. I’ve lived many lives already, yet there’s potentially twice that lifetime to come! I hope I live a long time, mainly because I don’t want other people to have to deal with grief about my sudden and unexpected death. It’s crazy to think about how someone can suddenly just be out of the picture completely. BOOM! They’re gone. And that could be me. Something could happen and all my plans suddenly turn to dust and I’m in the next world. It happens all the time. Of course I want out of this miserable life but I really could use a lot more time to grow and become a much better person. I have A LOT of growing to do. It’s kind of ridiculous. I talk a good talk but I have a lot to prove.

One thing I’ve started to realize is that I’m two different people. I’m one person with others and another alone. With others my better qualities tend to come out. I listen, I care, I want to serve them and make them happy. I see their goodness and appreciate the warmth of their souls. I feel more like a servant, a spiritual being in action with others.

When I’m alone, however, I feel like I’m either wanting to be with others in a meaningful way or I’m escaping from those feelings and many other painful feelings by playing computer games or watching movies or surfing the internet. I’m so driven to distraction. I just can’t seem to shake this feeling: I’ve experienced certain spiritual highs in life, levels of peace and joy and fulfillment and purposefulness. I long to feel those feelings again and have trouble bearing their absence. Escapism is just a drug though. The problem only gets worse.

I guess that’s one reason I would love to find the love of my life sooner rather than later. I respond so much to other people. When someone else is around and presents me, intentionally or not, with an opportunity to serve and connect, it always feels like just such a more straight and direct path to happiness and usefulness for me. So it would be great to have someone around that gave me that opportunity all the time. Imagine! Living with someone who I connect with on that deep level, who cares about those same deep spiritual things that are all that makes this life worth living to me, someone who is kind and soft spoken and pure hearted, who is a true lover of Baha’u’llah. Imagine having someone like that around to bring the best out of me all the time, a real person right there, a person who will respond to the kind of gifts I have to give, who will appreciate them! And then children around all the time who will respond even more and draw the best out of me even more! That really is a big part of it for me. The right kind of girl for me is someone who will help me to be that better version of myself all the time.

There’s no other feeling like being with someone, boy or girl, who truly is an intoxicated lover of Baha’ullah! Someone whose priorities and joys of life really truly are on a higher plane. I’m not talking about a saint, or even always someone who is living their life in a healthy way. I’m talking about someone whose heart longs for union with the Best Beloved, whose soul cries out for the freedom of nothingness before Him, whose eyes burn with search for any sign of Him in this dust heap of a world. I just want to find a woman who is truly, deeply in love with Baha’u’llah, who is kind and loving, whose inner heart is pure and full of longing, someone gentle and caring. She can have any interests she wants. She doesn’t have to be beautiful by societal standards, just basically pleasing to look at and listen to, y’know? She can be older than me even!

Somewhere in the Baha’i Writings it is said that as two lovers of God come closer to each other they come closer to God, so maybe that really is a way to draw nearer to Him! Maybe that really is a way to feel His presence more and experience the joy of His love and feel the warmth of His light more in the black abyss of nothingness that is the prison of self. Maybe that really is something that can help to lift me out of the prison and into the bright sky! But only if she is an intoxicated lover of Baha’u’llah. If not then we’re on a different subject and it’s not about any of this. It’s not about God or the spiritual realm. There isn’t that deep spiritual connection and sharing of love for Baha’u’llah, which is the most wonderful thing in life to share. In my life at least.

I won’t rush in again! I won’t settle for less than that level of spiritual connection! Even if I have to wait 10 years! Even if I have to wait until I cross the threshold of death! The challenge for me until then is to find a connection to God on my own, without much support from other at all. I guess that’s been my test. I’m the kind of person that thrives in giving and receiving support. That’s part of why I should be a counselor, which is a different subject. I have gotten lots of support from my parents and step-dad—and my brother when we’re together—especially in spiritual matters, but at the same time there’s so many things that a Baha’i who I don’t know very well can understand and relate to in my experience better than my family can. There are so many things about being a Baha’i that are extremely difficult and painful and trying and, for me, lonely. I wonder what it would be like to be raised in a family of devout Baha’is. My parents and siblings are all dedicated servants of Baha’u’llah. Any time I am feeling the challenges of this struggle for purity and obedience and concerted action and sacrifice I can go to them and confide in them and hear advice that comes out of the same devotion to Baha’u’llah that I feel, the same absolute commitment to God’s revealed plan that I feel deep in my heart. Would this journey feel so lonely then? Would that take some of the burden of my shoulders?

I have walked this path alone for too long. I mean the central principle of the Cause of God is unity! We’re not meant to do it alone! It’s not easy! We must strive to help each other all we can! I guess what I’m saying is I need help. I wasn’t willing to say that for so long because I felt like I should be the one giving help and that others must perceive me as strong in order for me to be of service, to be a leader. Well, I’ve been sufficiently humbled by now. Boy, am I humble. I am really, REALLY humble. Pride and vainglory definitely are not my primary weaknesses!

I can’t just go out and make a great marriage happen, and absolutely not for the next 2 months. Chances are I’m not going to suddenly have tons more support in my life here from friends. So if I don’t want to walk this path alone and I want to get the support I need I’m going to really have to reach out to the spiritual realm in ways that I haven’t for a long time. The last time I really was consistently linked with the spiritual world was when I was much younger and hadn’t been a Baha’i for very long and was a lot more innocent and pure. It kind of feels now like I was a child, full of the light of the Kingdom just naturally, without really trying, without fully knowing how or why. Now that innocence is gone forever and I’ve got to find my way back. i have to return to that secret and holy place as a man. It must be a conscious effort, it must involve a great deal of shedding of old ways, and lots of growing and lots of concerted and not easy or always pleasant work. I have to really, really want it! I have to work for it. If I try hard, if I seek His forgiveness and put myself at His mercy and open my heart to Him completely, I can still achieve the victory!

“O SON OF BEING!
My love is My stronghold; he that entereth therein is safe and secure, and he that turneth away shall surely stray and perish.” -- Baha’u’llah

If only I can find way into that stronghold again Lord I swear I’ll never leave again! Not even I could be such a fool! I’ve learned my lesson and I’m a wiser man. Unfortunately I’m a wise man stuck in the middle of dark wilderness. Help me find my way back to You Lord and I’ll never leave You again! And if the way back to that fortress could be a little easier and smoother that would be great but I’ll just do my part and whatever You give me is the essence of awesomeness! You are so wonderful God! I’m just glad that I believe in You and that I recognize Baha’u’llah and that, though I’m far away and in the dark, You have deposited in my heart the compass that will guide me every step of the way, all the way to very court of Your throne! Yes! Life is actually pretty awesome. When I think about what You have revealed to me about what life is really about and the vision that You’ve given me for my own life’s path and of Your plan for us all, I feel really grateful. REALLY grateful! Like WOW! How in the heck do I deserve this amazing privilege when so many others are lacking it! I have got SO MUCH work to do to even begin to fulfill the responsibilities that come with this privilege. Oh I need help! I can’t do this alone! Ah, I just want scream right now! I NEED HEEEEELP! THIS IS REALLY HARD! I’M WEAK! I can’t even do this at all! I’m a body, a brain, a personality, an ego, a collection of desires and fears. What You’re asking Lord, it’s just beyond me! I can’t even imagine it! Please just destroy me and all this I, Me, Mine! Sweep it away so your work can be done through this vessel! Help me do what it takes to make that happen! I certainly don’t, in my heart, want to keep all this stuff! All this self. Blech! Cleanse me of it! Wash it away, please! Wash it away. Man, I hope that really happens. Help me do my part Lord, I beseech Thee!