I have been doing a lot of mulling over what makes human relationships deep and meaningful. It's crazy how many walls - conscious and unconscious - that we erect around our precious selves. When I look deep within my own self, with the revealing light of God's truth looming before me, I see an internal labyrinth of twists and turns. I am guilty of much of what I am gonna talk about for sure.
The psychologist Larry Crabb talks about how deeply hurtful the sin of self-protection is - and yet not many of us are unaware of the fact that it is a sin. We claim we have the right to "protect ourselves" or say with total sensibility "we cannot expect to be best friends with everybody". It sounds absolutely logical and looks absolutely logical to keep people at arm's length. It sounds almost too convenient.
Sometimes I think being nice and polite can be insufferable and frustrating. Being nice and polite, we sometimes refrain from saying what is always on our minds. It does not mean that we should be aggressive, rude or in-your-face. Nice and polite has a place and time.
BUT sometimes our being 'nice and polite' and 'sensitive' can be convenient excuses to stay indifferent to another person. We don't want to create trouble. And God FORBID, we get involved!
We don't want to go into the uncharted scary territory of offence and in doing so, we create opportunities for ourselves to become hypocrites.
Some of us are scared of OFFENDING another person. So we keep our mouth shut and keep our grouses within in the name of 'niceness'. Yet, we get disdainful and arrogant about how 'touchy' and 'closed up' the person is. Or worse, we gossip with others about why he/she is so touchy.
The question here to answer honestly is : Why don't we attempt to push past the person's barricades and find out how they are and what they think?
Some of us are scared of BEING OFFENDED by another person. So we keep our mouth shut around the type of people who aggravate us the most in the name of 'niceness'. Yet, deep within, we fester with resentment about being forced into a closeted, constrained kind of life by such 'nasty, insensitive' people - we grumble ironically about a closet we actually created for ourselves.
The question here to answer honestly is: Why don't we let down our barriers and let others see our thoughts - ugly as they are?
It is funny how often we deliberately choose not to engage deeply with people. And be driven to despair with the lack of deep engagement. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, a tragic comedy of sorts. The one thing we demand of people, we are not willing to give of ourselves to make it happen.
So many of us hunger so deeply for real, genuine heart-to-heart, deep-calls-out-to-deep relationships. We read up books and hear sermons telling us how to do so but nothing penetrates - especially when the books and sermons sound like meaningfullly offered but flat instructions.
It's like handing our recipies to starving people - they don't want to know the instructions of how to make a meal, they want the meal itself. There is something very wrong and very sad when all people have heard the preaching about Love THY Neighbour and yet not all people can testify that they have felt that Love.
Jesus tells us to Feed our sheep. Not tell them how to feed themselves. Or hope that other people will feed them.
Why are we so scared of crossing the barricades we erect around ourselves?
Why do we erect so many barricades around us?
Why do so many of our words and conversations rotate around and around the desire for genuine relationships and genuine love and yet we never dare to do anything about it?
Why do so many of us pin an obsessive hope for a soulmate to come along as if the perfect husband or wife will solve our deep hunger for real relationships?
Why are we so scared to lose the life that we have? The peaceful, feel good life of non-confrontation?
Why do we cling on so tightly to our privacy?
Our life without fights, difficult conversations and awful truths?
Could it be that deep relationships only happen if we let go of 'polite niceness', speak words of truth IN LOVE - embrace the possibility of fights, difficult conversations and awful truths which may actually open doors for deeper relating?
Luke 9:24 records for us Christ's intoxicating words:
"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."
Christ demanded that we give up all earthly things in our life. I don't think he meant just the surface tangible stuff. I think he meant the difficult parts as well - ego, esteem, privacy, vulnerability.
It does not mean we should bare our souls like modern Pharisees, proclaiming loudly in the streets "Look how brave and vulnerable I am!!!! Oh so godly!!!! and honest!!" That's repulsive and reeks of showmanship.
I mean we should have a disarmament. We should lay down our defenses and surrender our need to protect our lives. And say the honest thing, even if that lays everything vulnerable before another.
The writer Frederick Buechner felt this keenly as he struggled through his father's suicide. He wrote a book that quotes King Lear in its title, "Speak What We Feel (Not What We Ought To Say): Reflections on Literature and Faith."
Like all Shakespearen tragedies, King Lear involves miscommunication of epic proportions. Lear has his daughters compete for their inheritance by judging who can proclaim their love for him in the grandest possible fashion. Cordelia finds that she is unable to show her love with mere words. While her elder sisters posture and preen about their love to their happy father, Cordelia says in a famous quiet aside that goes on to start the tragedy going:
"What shall Cordelia speak?
Love, and be silent."
Though traditionally seen as the epitome of goodness in the play, Cordelia is not as innocent as we think. Her general silence - dare we say 'wimpiness - about how she feels about such mistreatment and injustice really does contribute somewhat to how much her wicked sisters get away with.
At the end of the play, among the dead bodies of both the heroes and villains, the Duke of Albany says with great regret:
"The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
In short : the truth of our dark times must be told, whether or not it is what others want to hear.
Buechner himself ends off his poignant book with this encouragement:
"Fear not. Be alive. Be merciful. Be human.
And most unlikely of all:
Even when you can't believe,
even if you don't believe at all,
even if you shy away at the sound of his name,
be Christ."
Christ was able to talk to everyone with BOTH truth and love.
He never feared vulnerability or testing other people's pretence at invulnerability.
Surely, we who know and love Christ, and claim to be his disciples - should try to do the same?
How much of our own life do we still want to keep for ourselves? And for what purpose honestly?
How much are we willing to pour out at the feet of others irregardless of whether they trample upon them or not?
I want to see real change in relationships.
But first, it starts off with taking a real good look at how to change ME.
I am serious about this: If you know me personally, and if you have things you want to make me aware of - like how I frustrate you, or how I am insensitive to you - please let me know. :)
I am truly willing to disarm and learn. And die die humble myself. So call me out if I get defensive.
And if it gets ugly, it gets ugly. Love and Truth will deal with it.
God will make sure I am ready to hear about my inner ugliness. :)
