"A strong community helps people develop a sense of true self, for only in community can the self exercise and fulfill its nature: giving and taking, listening and speaking, being and doing. But when community unravels and we lose touch with one another, the self atrophies and we lose touch with ourselves as well. Lacking opportunities to be ourselves in a web of relationships, our sense of self disappears, leading to behaviors that further fragment our relationships and spread the epidemic of inner emptiness." -Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness
It's not uncommon for people to ask me why I still go to church (As though I even understand all the reasons. I like the question though because it causes me to revisit and rethink). I think this quote explains in part why I go.
I realize that it's possible to find a "web of relationships" in a multitude if places that challenges me and causes me to grow and develop, but in the church I'm able to find a web that helps me wrestle with things that are important to me: my spiritual life, the growth and development of my soul, the connection between my mortal existence and whatever is out there that tells me what more there is to me than just a collection of skin and bones.
Again, I could probably find those opportunities elsewhere but I suppose it all comes down to the fact that Mormonism has formed my foundation and so in spite of its annoying cultural eccentricities, it still feels like home.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
relationships as a mirror
The benefit of having a blog that is at times a journal is being able to go back and see snapshots of where I’ve been. About a year and a half ago I wrote a post about how I decided that I wanted to go to vulnerable places. Based on limited experiences I’d had being in a relationship with serious romantic undertones (it was a romantic relationship but it wasn’t because I wasn’t allowing myself to have those), I knew how much I’d learned from it and I knew that even though there was a lot of pain involved, I wanted to do it some more. I said, “Based on my limited experience, being in an intimate relationship with someone you are completely attracted to stirs up insecurities like nothing else can. It takes you to the most vulnerable of places and provides opportunities to learn about yourself and grow as a result, in a way that nothing else can. I want to go there.”
And I did! Five months to the day that I wrote that post, I told a cute guy with big brown eyes that I liked him and he said he liked me and we decided to give it a shot. In another post (which I won’t link to because it’s one of those posts that you write when you’re in love and then are kind of embarrassed about it after the fact), I said the relationship was liking walking into a dimly lit room and having a vague sense that the room is beautiful but it’s confirmed as the sun rises and light floods the room. (Give me a break, I was trying to explain what I was experiencing and it was all fairly new to me.)
Anyway, the relationship over the better part of the last year has been fairly easy, to the point that I half wondered if a good relationship wouldn’t include vulnerable places. (HA!) Probably part of the ease was because we’re both really nice guys who tend avoid confronting difficulties or tensions that arise in a relationship. Not that we ignored them altogether. It’s just that we’re both kind of new at this and we probably weren’t giving them the attention they needed. And now after a year we’re more comfortable, or see the need, to push back and stake out our individual places within the relationship, and address aspects of the relationship that we feel need addressing.
Enter, for me, the vulnerable places. I think Eugene England once compared relationships to a mirror. I couldn’t find what he said exactly, and to be honest, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the first or the last to make that comparison, but that idea resonates with me. Being in close relationship with someone to whom you are wholly attracted and with whom you are honest, has a way of teasing out insecurities and unresolved issues. A year and a half ago I asked for vulnerable places, and I got them.
Fortunately for me, I have a team of a handful of ladies who have much more experience than I do to consult with, my Relationship Board of Directors, as my friend KaRyn once called her own team of consultants. These are ladies who listen and ask questions and send me Walt Whitman poems and generally get me back to home base. They help me remember that these issues aren’t best approached with fear but with mindfulness and awareness of and patience with what I’m experiencing.
And I did! Five months to the day that I wrote that post, I told a cute guy with big brown eyes that I liked him and he said he liked me and we decided to give it a shot. In another post (which I won’t link to because it’s one of those posts that you write when you’re in love and then are kind of embarrassed about it after the fact), I said the relationship was liking walking into a dimly lit room and having a vague sense that the room is beautiful but it’s confirmed as the sun rises and light floods the room. (Give me a break, I was trying to explain what I was experiencing and it was all fairly new to me.)
Anyway, the relationship over the better part of the last year has been fairly easy, to the point that I half wondered if a good relationship wouldn’t include vulnerable places. (HA!) Probably part of the ease was because we’re both really nice guys who tend avoid confronting difficulties or tensions that arise in a relationship. Not that we ignored them altogether. It’s just that we’re both kind of new at this and we probably weren’t giving them the attention they needed. And now after a year we’re more comfortable, or see the need, to push back and stake out our individual places within the relationship, and address aspects of the relationship that we feel need addressing.
Enter, for me, the vulnerable places. I think Eugene England once compared relationships to a mirror. I couldn’t find what he said exactly, and to be honest, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the first or the last to make that comparison, but that idea resonates with me. Being in close relationship with someone to whom you are wholly attracted and with whom you are honest, has a way of teasing out insecurities and unresolved issues. A year and a half ago I asked for vulnerable places, and I got them.
Fortunately for me, I have a team of a handful of ladies who have much more experience than I do to consult with, my Relationship Board of Directors, as my friend KaRyn once called her own team of consultants. These are ladies who listen and ask questions and send me Walt Whitman poems and generally get me back to home base. They help me remember that these issues aren’t best approached with fear but with mindfulness and awareness of and patience with what I’m experiencing.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
the result of being big in a place of tension
I believe that when we keep in mind the ideas espoused in the following quotes, constructive conversations like this can happen.
"By size I mean the stature of your soul, the range and depth of your love, your capacity for relationships. I mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive or insecure. I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness. I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions. I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions that enable others to increase in stature." - Bernard Loomer
"From international relations to what goes on in the workplace to raising a teenager, we find ourselves living between reality and possibility, between what is and what could and should be. But if we are willing actively to "hang in there" with a country, a colleague, or a child - holding the unresolved tension between reality and possibility and inviting something new into being - we have a chance to participate in the evolution of a better reality. Standing in the gap is challenging, but the alternatives are irresponsible. One is to fall out on the side of too much reality and into corrosive cynicism. The other is to fall out on the side of too much possibility and into irrelevant idealism. Both take us out of the action. But if we are willing to stand between the poles, refusing to fallout, we have a chance to play a life-giving role in the development of a new child, a work-place, or a world that needs to grow into "the better angels of our nature." - Parker Palmer
"By size I mean the stature of your soul, the range and depth of your love, your capacity for relationships. I mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive or insecure. I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness. I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions. I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions that enable others to increase in stature." - Bernard Loomer
"From international relations to what goes on in the workplace to raising a teenager, we find ourselves living between reality and possibility, between what is and what could and should be. But if we are willing actively to "hang in there" with a country, a colleague, or a child - holding the unresolved tension between reality and possibility and inviting something new into being - we have a chance to participate in the evolution of a better reality. Standing in the gap is challenging, but the alternatives are irresponsible. One is to fall out on the side of too much reality and into corrosive cynicism. The other is to fall out on the side of too much possibility and into irrelevant idealism. Both take us out of the action. But if we are willing to stand between the poles, refusing to fallout, we have a chance to play a life-giving role in the development of a new child, a work-place, or a world that needs to grow into "the better angels of our nature." - Parker Palmer
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