you matter.

i have been thinking a lot lately about how i believe that one of the things people want most in this world is connection. i don't know… maybe it's just me but i so desire to connect with someone or to feel like i belong with the people i've surrounded myself with.

maybe i think this because i haven't been feeling very "connected" lately, but i think that we in our society are such a disconnected people. we're disconnected from each other, from creation (which is why we tend to not be good stewards of the earth), from ourselves, and (if you so believe) from God. and again maybe i'm just projecting here, but it just seems to me that everyone is just searching for ways to reconnect. to fill in holes. and i've really been noticing it everywhere lately, largely in myself but also in the people i've come in contact with…

at cornerstone i saw bands that were anxious to connect with an audience for whatever reason… maybe they had a message to spread. maybe they needed to sell merch. maybe they just want to play music and have people listen. but i also saw people in these bands looking for a place to call home and for people to be consistent for them and present to them as they traveled across the country.

i've also seen people struggling because they've lost part of themselves so that they wouldn't have to lose a connection they'd made with someone else (or with a group of people). i guess it's hard to find someone to connect with and trust completely. it's kind of scary. (but maybe that's just me and my lack of faith.)

i've also seen people trying to connect with those who will love them like their parents should have loved them but probably did a really crappy job of doing. it's amazing how much the way you were raised can affect your ability to connect.

even in the movie i just saw, which was a collection of stories in paris, every single story was about how someone was wanting to either connect or reconnect with someone, whether it was an old lover, a lost son, a new lover, a city, a father, or a friend.

so i guess i just babbled all that stuff out (and who knows if it even made sense) to say that maybe we should all just be aware of the fact that we are a broken, disconnected people. that way we can be there for each other and have some grace for each other as we figure out what it means to reconnect to everything we've lost.