So we can re-frame our individual, personal suffering as another form of camaraderie between us. And yet it is only one of many. Even in the midst of our chaos we find profound moments of joy and acceptance at whatever the world may bring.
As we endure hardships we press into some magical space. Exhausted, broken, weary - perfect conditions for a magic spell (which is really just life bringing around a small taste of the harvest for which we long). We have a moment.
And in those moments time does stop. Or we enter a different sort of time zone, what the Greeks called Kyros. It was a whole different kind of thing. Time morphs into one extended moment, one long pause in the kronos (chronological time) grinder.
These moments are huge reminders that it IS worth it. All the struggle in the world we must endure are nothing compared to the glory of those precious moments. We truly experience an inner 5-course meal that leaves an aftertaste for years.
Moments are profoundly personal. In fact, trying to get others to feel the moment we are having may in fact ruin ours. The reality is, some moments are simply personal confirmation, unique to our way of thinking or looking at the world.
Rarely are we on exactly the same wave lengths as someone else. But occasionally there are shared moments. These are rare. But crazy powerful. It’s when two or three people in a room all have a breakthrough of some sort together.
It’s almost as if the moment descends on the room. At approximately the same time all involved hit that space, that transcending of our timezone. It usually results in shared silence, rendering all delightfully speechless. It’s a beautiful thing.
The point here is not to coerce more shared moments like this, but simply to point out that “moments” are part of our human experience. Whether personal, or public, people relate to the idea of a moment because they have already had one.
It is one more way we share being human and yet transcend being human. For those rare, exceptional moments where we communally experience a moment, we can hardly define it as anything less than worship. It’s when God enters the room.
Even though each person’s individual experience of the moment will be unique that there is a moment is not contested. Each knows something very special happened. And somewhere in that the space between us is lessened.
We are connected. It is true. Such times are almost proof of the invisible reality. The power of such moments can be so strong that it drives us to want to re-experience it. That is not ours to re-create. Such is the realm of gods and magic.
If we try to coerce a connective experience it often will backfire. Most people won’t be able to identify why the event is not working. Something is missing. Something is off. True connectivity is a special thing, a rare thing. No human is master of it.