CRASH

The premise of the Academy Award winning movie Crash is simple yet profoundly difficult to take in: we as human beings crash into each other in all sorts of violent and chaotic ways as unconscious and ill-advised means to connect and to touch.

It doesn’t make logical sense, does it? And yet as I watch this violent and chaotic world unfolding before me, I ponder if indeed it may be true.

In times of tragedy, terrorism, and natural disaster human beings often rise into their most magnificent expression. When looking at demonstrations of the worst of the worst of what humans are capable of there are almost always contrasting acts of heroism, generosity, kindness, and compassion. Superhuman feats of transcendence happen in the middle of terrifying acts of darkness, violence, greed, bigotry, and hatred. It truly is as if unconscionable darkness calls forth the supremacy of light. We see it over and over again.

There are a number of scenarios in Crash where people are thrown together in tragic and terrifying situations that are admittingly difficult to watch. And yet in each of these scenarios people touch and are touched by both violence and tenderness, greed and generosity, bigotry and equanimity, hatred and love. When the characters find themselves in what seem to be insurmountable situations something within them lifts them up and sets them free.

People crash together and are changed by the touch.

With all of the social media and instant internet access we as a culture are less connected than ever before. We mistake virtual access with intimate connection. We have hundreds of “friends” we have in actuality never met. We say things virtually we would never say in actual proximity. Cowardice masked as courage is rampant on all forms of social media.

Perhaps we are more divisive than ever in an unconscious attempt to at least engage. To feel the life force within us meeting the life force in someone else. To feel felt. To be heard and acknowledged, even if it is with reactivity and rebuke.

Perhaps in a world of so much unconsciousness and distraction I would rather crash into you than to never touch you at all.

It is unfortunate to me that many tend to gather with others in a mutuality of against. We dislike and disagree with the same people, so let’s start a club. Let’s paint signs and gather on the street and shout and make news. It won’t feel good or peaceful but at least we will be together and perhaps touch and sense some sort of comradery.

If there is any validity to this thesis, and I personally believe there is, I for one am choosing to consciously touch without the unconscious need to crash. I want to listen to you without requiring that you scream to get my attention. I do not need to wait for tragedy to happen to fully show up and to be my highest self. I do not choose to cluster with others in disagreement and protest. I willingly gather with others who choose to energize what we are indeed for.

I choose connection over protection. I choose intimacy over illusiveness, I choose to open myself to the depth of the human condition. I am willing to risk the hurt in order to feel the love.

The more open I am to chosen connection the less likely I am to require the pain of crashing.

There is a tragic level of disconnect in our culture today. Far more than in 2006 when the movie Crash was released. We feel it. We long to connect and touch. Our shared humanity calls to us to listen. To see. To connect. To touch.

Let’s not wait for the next tragedy to do so.

BUT, IS IT TRUE?

There was a time when not only did people believe the world was flat, they made decisions based on that fact.

This is not only evidence of the power of belief. It is also evidence that as beliefs evolve and change, so do the subsequent decisions.

The beliefs that governed my life a few decades ago are largely not the beliefs that govern my life today. That is because for me many beliefs become like shoes that are too tight. If I really like the shoes, I may still wear them for a while. I may choose situations of short duration to sport them. I may need to wear band aids on my heels. But eventually the pain becomes too great and I change what shoes I am choosing to wear.

Many of the beliefs that I was programmed with by family, church, and culture began to feel too tight and too ill fitting for me as the years rolled by. As I grew in Spirit and in awareness the old beliefs and perceptions began to cause me pain. They were too small for my expanding consciousness. They no longer fit who I was becoming.

But as those perceptions were familiar, I continued to keep them as a lens even after they began to cause me pain. I defended the beliefs because they were bonds to my tribal system. I walked through my life in and from those beliefs. They fed the way I thought. They framed my experience of who and what I thought I was. They kept me fitting in. And fitting in is encoded as survival. If I took off those beliefs and went out on my own, what would happen to me?

Slowly and often not so gently I began to free myself from my own painful perceptions and erroneous beliefs. I learned that doing so was not a simple mental process. I needed to go down into my emotional body, and address what underlie the beliefs. Relationships began to change and, in some cases, become turbulent, as our perceptual systems were no longer resonant. I had to move through the discomfort of supreme not knowing. Releasing one thought system, and not yet forming a new perceptual matrix, I floundered in the in-between.

I began to find evidence that indeed my beliefs were faulty. Many things I believed I could never do I found myself freely engaged in. Many perceptions that kept me defended against others crumbled and I found myself in a greater degree of connection and union. The world I thought was flat was indeed round. I wasn’t who I thought I was, and the world was not as I had framed it.

The evolution of my consciousness has blessed me with increasing internal space. An expansion is happening, and I relish it. So when it begins to feel cramped in here, I question how I am thinking and what I am believing. I ask myself “but is it true?” That simple question brings me back to center and gives me the opportunity to take off the cramping shoes. Then I can walk about freely and with clarity. And gratefully. Oh, so gratefully.

And for you, dear reader; are there any tight-fitting beliefs in need of release? Any perception you may question in the name of freedom? “But, is it true?”