Never walk alone

Once upon a time, on a deserted path, Stranger, I spied our shadows
intertwining. Then I knew that human souls are constantly longing to mesh, but alas the walls scale too high and wide!

A glimmer sparkles in our budding acquaintance as you sit there, opposite
me. I look into your eyes and I want to know you;

But I sense you are afraid to breach the wall and let me see who you are. And who could blame you?

You have no guarantee that I will find your deeper waters more fetching than the winking surface waves that you tease back and forth the shores that define you.

Set on assurances, how can you know that I long for a long drink from
these chilling depths below the tip of your iceberg?

Instead, you tell me of your flourishing enterprises, your praiseworthy accomplishments. You strive to impress me with your flashy possessions and
glamorous lifestyle, and I…

Well, I am found wanting.

You see, I possess not a fraction of what you have. Some time ago I would have blushed, ashamed of my material poverty. But I have come to know the secret that life is more than doing and having. Therefore I am not dazed;

Perhaps I am a little fazed that what could be, at our intersection, is forfeited in favor of chit-chat when we know deep down that if we sit with genuine intent for companionship, we will glimpse the awesome breathtaking beauty of unblushing naked souls.

Perhaps when we next meet, I hope we shall whimsically risk looking into each other’s eyes and find the hidden jewels of our whole hearts.

Perhaps then, you and I will never walk alone. ~ Nimi Stainbank

The world is crowded yet we can feel desperately alone. I was sixth of nine siblings, and though there were often multitudes occupying or passing through my childhood home, I had this deep sense of aloneness that left me feeling strangely vulnerable, in a vast scary world.

I think of subways and city centers where countless bodies pass each other and more and more, even the simple courtesy greeting has disappeared from our interactions. We’re either preoccupied in our heads or our heads bent to the distractions in our handys. Therefore we go about unseen, unheard, and unknown. Yet these are the essence of our pilgrimage.

We used to tiptoe on the shores of deeper connection but now we avoid the beach altogether.

In Joburg CBD, and I wager many other places, one can suffer the misfortune of mugging or collision and bystanders will not dare to intervene. An even worse phenomenon is that people will whip out their phones and film the attack or collision instead of stepping in to save a life.

Witnessing these irregularities in the city unlocked an understanding of the strange vulnerability in my childhood. Amidst the multitudes in my home, many ills and much abuse occurred and was suffered in silence, with no one the wiser.

From the moment we enter life, we suffer hurts of all kinds, and it is not long before hurts from others, whom we’d hope to care for us as their kind, scar us and trigger our defensive mechanisms such that we flee from any kind of vulnerability.

The problem is that as we flee from vulnerability we also flee from our soul’s primary longing – intimacy.

It is written: “It is not good for man to be alone”

Isolation continues to grow at alarming rates. No longer are we courageous enough to obey the Creator’s conclusive remark above, instead in pride we rebel and diminish to “me, myself, and I” solitary confinement.

Isolation begins with self-absorption. This is where the self-entity usurps power and becomes the dictator in our heads. Everything becomes all about me, myself and I such that we fail to notice anyone else’s point of view or existence. Self-absorption snuffs out recognition and compassion for others.

Indeed, we are also not built to continually be in the company of multitudes. Our souls also need to be alone.

The problem is that we tend toward extremes, like iron fillings to magnets, we cannot help the temptation to veer to polarity. So, instead of enjoying appropriate times on our own, we adopt the perversion of isolation.

But our time alone is also not entirely alone, because The Word that declared “it is not good for man to be alone” cannot lie. Our time “alone” is actually meant to be time with the All One. Time with God.

Yet even He is lost in our flight from the call to the courageous pursuit of our Creator’s decree.
For if we cannot bear to know and be known, hear, and be heard by a brother or sister whom we can see, we cannot know and accept to be known nor hear and be heard by God, whom we cannot see.

To be heard and known is a great risk. It requires us to uncover the infinite bands we’ve bound on our hearts over the many years we endure continuing berating, rejection, and careless rude handling of our tender personhoods. It means bringing our heart out from hiding and holding it out again, offering it up for the promise in our Maker’s summation. It is living by faith with your most vulnerable essence exposed. It is living with our heart on our sleeve, so to speak.

Living with your heart on your sleeve is a weighty task that one who would seek to follow our Creator’s decisive proclamation regarding humanity adopts.

In many circles, if not all at this point, it is considered a criticism to be guileless, to live authentically, with your heart on your sleeve.

Living with your heart on your sleeve is not inflicting bad manners or moods on people but a commitment to be and speak truly and courageously from the heart.

If someone asks how you are doing, a guileless posture offers the sacrifice of sharing something true, even vulnerable, of their true present mental, emotional, or spiritual condition instead of the customary meaningless “I’m fine or I’m good”.

Perhaps you’ve heard of, or been that someone, whose outpouring was disdainfully scorned as an inappropriate “TMI”. Hearing this about someone or it said of you can instantly thrust you into hiding, causing your heart to retreat. But take heart to hand again, you are not called to be one of those who shrink back.

Yes, what you share may seem like “too much information”, and it may well be; but if the sharing is an honest offering of a broken and contrite spirit, then go in peace: you should engage courageously, even if it shocks or offends those who would seek to dim your light and condemn humanity to remain in the rebellion of obscurity.

Living with your heart on your sleeve is offering authentic measures of yourself to be known with the desire to unlock and extend meaningful connection with yourself, our Marker, or another human.

Concerning another human, alas in this life, we also have to navigate wisely, hence mastering the art of discerning what measures and doses apply to certain encounters and persons because it is sadly utterly foolish to entrust ourselves wholly to man in this fallen world. Many people have gone so far astray from the original design for mankind to honor one another in favor of corruption. Thus like swine, they will trample on your pearls. From such hogs, cast not your pearls.

But with ourselves and our Maker, it is foolish to withhold any measure of our trust. In fact, if we expose our souls to ourselves and Him in our “All One” times, we will have the wisdom and discernment of the right measures of trust toward humanity that comply with the command to not be alone.

In a time where the tide rushes toward aloneness – in truth, disguised isolation, it will require extraordinary courage to learn, pursue, and master the delicate powerful art of walking intimately with God, and man, which is earnestly speaking and living out the truth that is in your heart, according to wise measures, even at the risk of social scorn.

Thereby never walking alone.

In all these musings it is most crucial to witness to the truest reality that the LORD, our Maker is Immanuel, God with us. A blessed poet penned this reality in a well-known poem, Footprints in the Sand, illustrating that in fact, we never walk alone.

When you have been in hiding for too long, it is initially tough to connect with the outer world and people, but since God is always with us I am finding a way to return to the ease and joy of being heard and known by mortals from whom my heart has fled starts here, with God, with me.

I have committed to listening intently to my heart, and boldly sharing her thoughts, wishes, and feelings truthfully with myself, and God.
This kind of opening up to be heard and known is requiring me to get away from the self-entity in my head and perceive the beautiful mind and spirit of God, in me.

And as I do, I’m finding that getting away from the self-entity in my head allows me to see more of the real me, and others as I, and they are instead of the often false or incomplete constructs in my head

As I look forward to progressing in mastering the art of being heard and known I see it requires abandoning fear and the selfishness of withholding.

When I’m afraid of being hurt again and again and again by others, I am unable to engage in the courage of vulnerability.

Without vulnerability, true intimacy cannot grow. Something and someone’s got to give. Sure it’s no fun being hurt, but by now we know that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and wiser. This thought ignites my courage to expose my heart sincerely and in truth.

Opening up to hear and know, and be heard and known can be a wearisome duty. To endure it with joy demands that I continually arouse curiosity and the zeal to learn more than meets my own eye and understanding.
This continues to be enriching as I walk with God-Immanuel.

I trust when the time comes that the door to my heart reopens, that it will prove beneficial to my neighbor too. Thereby attaining in the physical the promise in our Creator’s decree, and never walk alone.

xoxo

Nimi