Mental Musings

You hide and I'll seek. At the sound of that simple phrase, children scurry in every direction in an attempt to evade being caught. Sometimes children are so good at hiding that the seeker never does find them. Today I was reminded of how well we learn to hide. After listening to a conversation about visiting Baltimore and never seeing the drug ridden and poverty filled areas of the city, I said, "Cities are good at hiding their faults." Another person responded, "We are all good at that." In a culture that has come to value the sharing of the most intimate details of our lives through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, 4Chan, and more, we are all still very good hiders. Some people are so good that we never learn the reality behind their masked smile or their cloaked comments. Why do we put so much effort into hiding? Perhaps it is because we have witnessed or personally experienced the humiliation of being found. Some seekers are bad sports a...

Today I met a man who is dying from AIDS. I don't want to use his real name because his family lives in this area. Let's call him Frank. This is the story that Frank shared with me: Frank has had AIDS for many years, but recently was told that he is now terminal. When he was 20 he moved out on his own after years of abuse at home. He left because he felt like killing himself, but he didn't want to die. He eventually moved to California. Frank never felt loved at home, so he turned to the streets looking for love. He found what he thought was love in the arms of another man. This led Frank into a lifestyle of homosexuality, going from one partner to another. Eventually he contracted AIDS. Something happened to Frank about two years ago that changed his life. Frank met a 17-year-old boy while in the hospital. This boy knew Frank had AIDS, and while he never judged Frank's past he shared with him about Jesus. Frank accepted Jesus as his savior and for the f...