Great Love is Great Faith

Try to remain as pure as possible for your soulmate. Intimacy is a form of opening one's body and mind to the influences of another. The soul remains the same, but the mind controls the actions of the body, and our actions-how we interact with other beings and with ourselves-denotes the quality of the our souls. I believe that our soul "mate" is the one who is able to evoke the purest version of our own soul. The one we feel that we can be ourselves around, and not just a product of the popular opinion.

I've learned that a relationship doesn't lead to to love and then leads to marriage and the rest of our lives. Somehow, I kept finding myself sticking to miserable relationships, despite sign after sign we just didn't mesh. I had convinced myself that I was capable of loving the person I was with, thinking that if I said "I love you" enough times that it would eventually become true. The truth was that I secretly, yet vehememtly despised every person I was with. I had some fun flings with cute faces, but none of the offered to date me. And thats what I was waiting for, an offer. The guys I ended up dating always had some mortal flaw: the first guy was an all-around jackass, the next guy would have made a much better friend than a heterosexual partner, and the last one was honestly just not my type. I didn't find any of them really attractive, but I figured it couldn't be that hard to live with a mediocre face. My theory on relationships at the time was that we have no choice but to settle in some way: ugly face, but decent sex; lame, but sweet; a complete turn-off, but loyal. I settled big time with each one, not because I thought I was "better" than any one of them (except the first one, he really was a loser), but because no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't be happy with any of them. And I believe that we are all meant to be happy.

Death and love are the great equalizers. Death is pretty self explanatory-but love...is different, you actually have to live through it. No amount of fame or wealth can fix a truly broken heart. Everyone has felt, or is capable of feeling that "feeling" of losing love-you know what I'm talking about, when your chest feels like its caving in and your brain feels like it wants to die for a little while while the rest of your shattered world sorts itself out. At that moment, you realize that nothing material or physical matters, your only concern is the joy that is leaving your soul. I digress...

I remember the first time I cheated on someone I was dating. It was weird. I didn't feel as guilty as I anticipated; in fact, I felt exhilerated, which was a bg suprise to me. I thought that I would feel some type of remorse for breaking an understood pact and would automatically be endowed with the conviction to never do it again, but instead, I justified my infidelity as a personal compesation for forcing myself to be with that person. My concept of "love" and "trust" ran parallel to that of the movie The Last Supper, and what started off as revenge soon became a compulsion; I called it my "zero tolerance for bullshit" policy. I was a pretty girl and a good person who had devoted most of my life thus far to community and religious service. I was eager to experience "erotic" love, but kept getting kicked around by fate and my inability to walk away from a sad face. I became the addicted to the feeling of skill and vigilante justice that I got out of cheating. Eventually, it got old.

We only trust others to the exent that we are able to trust ourselves. I became intimate with people I didn't care for only for the sheer joy of betraying them, and if the betrayal was reciprocated I could live with, deal with it, and move on after showing a few tears. I sacrificed love to spare myself of any risk of being hurt. Despite what I had been through in these relationships, I allowed the ill will of that person to affect how I loved. I soaked up their lack of trustworthiness and made it my own. Sure I've grown since then. The thought of cheating sickens me. No good person deserves to be emotionally tortured, and no bad person deserves the time and genuine love of a good person for very long. Everyone deserves a fair chance, but if they mess it up...they lose. For their sake, hopefully they'll learn their lesson and get another shot; but some are doomed for the cycle.

Whoever you are: Love the way you want to be loved. Be the example, but most of all love yourself to the point of purity. Try not to taint your soul with guilt. And listen to your spirit. Feeling love and thinking love are very different.

I hope the best for you all.      

Im watching The Last Temptation of Christ. Although I have never seen this movie, I know the backstory to the scene I'm glancing at, just from going to church when I was younger. Its the scene with the adulterous woman who is about to be stoned by a mob of accusers. The quote that originated from this confrontation, "ye without sin cast the first stone," has been used as a defense against judgement time and time again. But the message of the quote goes a bit deeper than just shaking a finger at the judgemental. We are all tied together by common threads that shape human tendency. Flaws are a part of our healthy psyche. We must give ourselves permission to be human, while following divine example. When we begin to focus on and pick at the others flaws of others, we slowly adopt those tendencies ourselves, or the feelings derived from those tendencies. By then, we inadvertently become the people we want to despise and we cast stones on our own spirits.

In order to build ones self, one must build his fellow man.