Relationships: Sacrifice and Sanctification

Daily we are flooded with images and stories of relationship.  It becomes difficult to sort reality and fantasy. Girl meets boy and gets married. Compatible in all the right ways they seek pleasure in one another and enjoy a comfortable yet occasionally adventurous life. Mother has daughter. Daughter begins to resent mother for inconsistencies and unmet promises.  She gradually pushes away and works to form a "new beginning." The relationship becomes cold and cordial while bubbling with hostility under its shallow waters.

I could continue with the vague scenarios and the faces and roles could shift places like a deck of cards.  In the end my hope is to challenge the way we view the purpose of relationships.  Is the purpose of marriage compatibility and comfort?  Are we to write off all of those that do not meet our standards?  While there may be a place for these things in the name of boundaries, I challenge us to consider love and it's foolish wisdom that despises the proud.


Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.

   And he raised his head and looked upon 

the people, and there fell a stillness upon 

them. And with a great voice he said:

    When love beckons to you, follow him, 

    Though his ways are hard and steep. 

    And when his wings enfold you yield to

 him, 

    Though the sword hidden among his

pinions may wound you. 

    And when he speaks to you believe in

him, 

    Though his voice may shatter your dreams 

as the north wind lays waste the garden.

    For even as love crowns you so shall he 

crucify you. Even as he is for your growth

so is he for your pruning. 

    Even as he ascends to your height and 

caresses your tenderest branches that quiver

in the sun,

    So shall he descend to your roots and

 shake them in their clinging to the earth.

   Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto 

himself. 

   He threshes you to make you naked.

   He sifts you to free you from your husks. 

   He grinds you to whiteness.

   He kneads you until you are pliant; 

   And then he assigns you to his sacred

fire, that you may become sacred bread for

God’s sacred feast.

   All these things shall love do unto you 

that you may know the secrets of your 

heart, and in that knowledge become a

fragment of Life’s heart.

   But if in your fear you would seek only 

love’s peace and love’s pleasure, 

   Then it is better for you that you cover

your nakedness and pass out of love’s 

threshing floor,

   Into the seasonless world where you 

shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, 

and weep, but not all of your tears.

- Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"

I am; therefore I see

I was fortunate enough to have my eyes opened a bit tonight.  A friend of mine put together a lesson on video gaming and hit on several points of why people become "gamers".  I'm not talking about the occasional hobby type but the obsessive lifestyle living-in-my-parents-basement image we get when we think of true gamers.  He spoke of a desire for community, power, achievement and safe intimacy.  We watched several testimonials of people that live their life through gaming.  They create an alternative beautiful or robust avatar to live in a world they fabricate and thrive in rather than the reality they merely exist in.  Some of these memories even become real.  One young woman spoke with excitement about the number of friends she has in her version of a real world.  Is this world that bad?

SEE ME!!! please see me, all of me... and still love me.  

This is the deaf scream that I heard from so many. 

Sure, there are exceptions but the harsh reality became so real.  So many of these people look for an alternative body to live in because we tell them they are not beautiful enough.  They look for achievement and power because we tell them they will never be enough.  You ask, "How can I tell them this! I have no part in it.  It's the media's fault."   I'm not proposing that as an individual we must rush out and rescue every hurting soul.  It's impossible.  As a Christian I'm learning that to "rescue" even one is not of my own.  I'm simply challenging that we begin to SEE the people we encounter.   I feel this so real in their lives because I've felt it in my own. 

I titled this "I am; therefore I see" because I have come to the realization that the more my personhood is intact the clearer my sight becomes.  When I have a sense of self and feel comfortable in being who my Creator designed me to be then I am better able to see and to love.  I am no fool to deny that my own fears and over-analysis (the occupational hazard of being a counselor) play into this cataract view.    

Herein lies the problem.  Being consumed in self and fear renders me unable to see others.  Other times I realize that I need to fit them into a box in order to understand them and feel safe.  Researchers call this a schema which is sometimes used to develop a fixed action pattern.  In other words, we try to fit someone in a box so we know how to act and react.  This is great when a shady character is about to mug you but it's unfortunate in relationship.  It cuts off the totality of the person and doesn't allow us to accept the fluidity of their personhood and/or character in a variety of situations.... sometimes their weak... sometimes their strong.  

There is a quote I heard a long time ago and I'm not sure of its author.  It say, "We see people as we are not as they are."  I've made it a point to burn this in my memory and try to live against it.  Sadly it rings true more often than not.  However, the more I live outside of my fears and the less I try to fit someone into a schema, the more I feel free to SEE them and to love them.   Maybe we sometimes fear seeing people because we're afraid we won't have the capacity to love them and maybe sometimes this is the reason we're afraid of being seen.   

Good old C.S. Lewis brings it home in his book The Screwtape Letters.  Uncle Screwtape teaches his demon nephew Wormwood how to corrupt relationships from the inside out.  His "pointers" are particularly directed to the home life but I believe they can be applicable in all relationships.  

Pointer # 1 - Keep his mind off the most elementary duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones

Pointer # 2 - It is no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very 'spiritual', that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism.  

Pointer # 3 - Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery.  

Pointer # 4 - Your patient must demand that all his own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time judging all his mother’s utterances with the fullest and most oversensitive interpretation of the tone and the context and the suspected intention.  

The first time I read this a couple of years ago the simplicity of these truths made perfect sense.  I wish I could say it is always a part of my daily interactions.  However, there are many relationships I have that are painted with the fulfillment of these “pointers”.  My hope has been to heal those areas and be conscious enough to prevent them in the future.  A hope that in order to be fulfilled, grace is necessary.

This idea has been itching at me for quite some time.  Maybe years.  But I've never quite been able to scratch it (develop the concept this far). This is an area I’m working on so I am pleased to see this more fully, my heart more enlighten for a challenge.  My prayer is that I grow more in who I am and what I am created to be so I can see.   

I would love your thoughts on this topic.