Solitary Confinement

So I just finished an episode of Law & Order: SVU where Elliot locks himself in solitary confinement for three days just so he could see how it affected his mind. I also recently watched a documentary on solitary confinement in the prison system. So I guess the topic of the day is solitary confinement.

It seems as though an isolated mind can be a curious place. And when I say curious what I actually mean is treacherous.

So I guess humans were meant to be in community. We are hard wired to be around others. We need human interaction. We need words, sounds, feelings and connection. Strange though, it seems so often that as soon as humans get together, someone ends up getting hurt in some capacity.

“Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” –Eugene Ionesco

Puzzling. When we start considering the way things should be, people splinter and fragment like broken glass. But when we consider the way things actually are, suddenly the unrefined facts of life bring fragmented individuals together.

I think I am struggling with that. I want to strive towards things being as they should. But the ideal and the actual are so far apart, I am not sure how to bring those together in my daily life.

I know the church answer. I know the Incarnation produced the personification of the ideal and the actual. I get that.

But it is me that I am struggling with. How do I bridge the gap between the ideal and actual at work?

Perhaps that is the other point of the Incarnation. We are now able to take part in the supernatural. The ideal. The indestructible.

It’s hard to imagine and believe but it seems as though God puts up in positions to BE Him to others. We aren’t merely to talk to a picture of Jesus on a wall; we are to BE Jesus to the world.

I am to BE the ideal and the actual. As best I can. Pushing hard. No excuses.