Symmetrical lives

There are many reasons it's nice to blog; one of these reasons is that you are able to see the person blogging.  You can get to know the person, whether you know them outside of their blog or not.  At least that's the way I've known most people to blog.  They may blog about their experiences, their opinions on certain topics, or they may write poetry or literature.  Although it's not a requirement to be authentic when one writes, it's much more difficult if one is not authentic.  There may be temptations to not be authentic because it opens yourself, makes you more vulnerable.  The more people know about you, the more they can hurt you in some way.  Yet, being vulnerable requires trust and faith; trust in that the readers will not attempt to ruin your reputation, your feelings, your ego and faith that, even if they do, other readers will either defend you and/or there as many opinions as stars in the universe.  Why get upset about the criticism or attack?

This leads to something I realized again, I think it was yesterday.  I was reading a blogpost and was struck because of the symmetry.  I'm not going to go into details, as it's complicated and messy.  It will suffice to say that the other person and I suffered some very similar torments at about the same exact time.  However, it seems that we emerged from those particular trials at the same time as well.  The point of relaying this is to reiterate you are not alone.  Someone, probably multiple someones, is going through a very similar experience as you, good or bad.  There is a peculiar symmetry to people's lives which can bring us together somehow, to experience and see the Body of Christ in each other in a deeper way.  I don't have my mind completely wrapped around the idea yet; maybe I will never completely comprehend it, but it still rings true.

Another aspect of this is: even though it's nice to know that I am not going through it by myself, in that having someone who knows what you're going through and feeling is reassuring, it's heartbreaking to know that someone else is experiencing the pain I am.  The idea that someone is experiencing the pain, the torture, the heart-rending agony that I may be experiencing is abhorrent to me.  I can be a jerk at times, but I don't wish pain, especially that sort of pain, on anybody.  All the time, for a select group of people, and some of the time for some other people, I would much rather suffer through that pain again than to have them be subject to it.  Yet, that's one more thing it seems we're called to: to feel that way all the time about everybody.  Jesus took the weight of sin and death of all of humanity upon Him in His sacrifice on the cross; I would think that's weightier than any other sort of pain.  I'm still growing, and will be for the rest of my life, I hope I can feel that way about many more people at the end of the year, and multiply it many times by the end of my life.  What do you think?

Because I can, and it somewhat, kind of, in a way goes with this topic: I'm going to include Circle of Life from the Lion King.  Until the next time you read/I post.