Seeking Connection

In a media age, we assume that...effective communication must come from a position of power.

In every age, the truth is...the best communication requires drawing near, whatever the cost.

In Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery, Dr. Richard Selzer described a scene he observed in a hospital room following an operation:

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in a palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of a facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.
Her husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together, they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight. Isolated from me, private. Who were they, I ask myself, he and this wry-mouth I have made, who gaze at each other, and touch each other generously, greedily?
The young woman speaks. "Will I always be like this?" she asks. "Yes," I say. "It is because the nerve was cut." She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. "I like it," he says. "It's kind of cute."
All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate hers, to show that their kiss still works. I remember that the gods appeared in ancient Greece as mortals, and I hold my breath and let the wonder in.

Yes, this is incarnation: conforming our lips to the distortions of another...drawing near...taking on flesh...meeting on their turf and in their terms.

In every such act, real communication is born. Suddenly, we know--regardless of our differences and the vast gaps between us--we can still come together. We can kiss. And as we do, the electricity of life and thought, ideas and intimacy flows between us.

---The Revolutionary Communicator

This is all I've ever wanted for necrotic matriculation, deathway & my life...it wasn't until recently that I've finally been able to recognize it...

Here's to making up for lost time...

Join me...