I was typing something in here earlier today when the power went out at work. It's was a fairly major problem so they shut the place down. Now I'm at home.

I've been in a strange frame of mind the last few days. It's all your fault. Well, no it isn't. It is related though. I'm standing at the border of an undiscovered country. I don't know if it's time to enter. My thoughts are that it's far too soon. I am enjoying the view. Will this river be forded? I don't know. I guess it's simply time to play on its banks.

[sure, it's vague. I'm leaving the interpretation up toyou, the reader. I think you'll discern the context. I don't know if you'll get the Star Trek reference. You get points if you do. You lose points, however, if you get too many Star Trek references. I'm sorry that's just the way it works.]

What I've been thinking about today is emotional intimacy among strangers. One of the reasons we are not to have sex outside of marriage is because it creates an intimacy between the people that can't be supported or sustained and that tears us apart when the relationship dies. The same thing can happen between people using only words and bared hearts. When the only connect you have is through words on the screen, it's easy to become very open about yourselves. This fosters a sense of intimacy that may be premature and unsustainable. This could be just as dangerous and hurtful as joining together in other ways. This thought isn't new to me. A girl I used to email explained it to me. It does have merit and is not something to be overlooked. I'm not sure where the boundaries are though. What makes one personal disclosure more [insert whatever word fits here] than another personal disclosure. How do you slow this intellectual/emotional merging without killing it altogether. I felt shut out by the girl who told me this. I felt it because I was. I did want to get to know her better. I did want to be more of a friend. Oh well, we have limits as humans. I pray that God helps me to use His love because I don't think I have much of my own to use. That's another subject though. :)

You probably think I'm thinking too much but it's easy to get emotionally involved with someone you don't know, especially from a distance. I think that the less you know about someone the more you'll use your imagination and your desires to fill in the blanks. The person you're talking to may be more of your own construction than the person on the other side of the screen. As you get to know the real person on the other end your picture of them fades into the real thing. What if you won't like what you see? What if you prefer the fantasy to reality? What if you may that the person on the other end is greater and more beautiful than anything that your own stupid, limited imagination could ever invent? ;)