Better is life together.
To my seminary friends understand this is not keen academics nor does it aim to be. Any great insight stated here is not my own intellect as if I could contribute something new under the sun.
To my reader may these words bless you. They have blessed me in their writing. Thank you.
Community, organization, friendship, clique, group, congregation, and fellowship all of these and those like them encapsulate the activity of relationship. We know the ups and downs of relationships, but do we seek the root of why or what relationship is? I have written a bit already about loneliness on this blog. So, yes, to a point relationship is an answer to a great wound I and most others suffer. I recommend Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer for a reflection on loneliness (his shorter piece Out of Solitude is good too). Not dwelling on ground all too familiar to this author the point is that understanding the reality of loneliness in my life has moved me to pursue relationship and understand it.
Starting from the point at which I want relationship -loneliness- the question of what relationship. What is the purpose of relationship? Awareness of language comes to the fore in relationship. Body language, verbal language, cultural language. Is the other person smiling or holding pursed lips? What words does he use in his sentence? What shared realities does he allude or point to? Language is more than spelling tests and grammar. It is cultural mores, practices, and traditions. Relationship is my living in the midst of "culture language" with others through the use of verbal, bodily, and time. Stick with me.
The verbal language is straightforward. You and I share the wonderful phenomenon known as English. My Times New Roman script makes sense to my eyes because I learned their form and meaning. Same with the phonetic sounds and to boot I got the midwestern dialect with its "ain't"s and "what not"s. The verbal language is nuanced and largely inherited. Nevertheless it is somewhat malleable. Bodily language is very fluid, and yet more difficult discern than verbal language. The realization with bodily language is the limitedness of my existence. I occupy 5'4" of vertical space and this world is huge. I can express myself with a strong stance or a timid cowering. Either way I communicate a bit of myself through how I occupy space. I could stay in the midwest or I could travel. Either way I express and live in occupied space. So language is both verbal and spatial. Combine these two with the passage of time and well you have History.
Thanks for letting me run down that trail a bit. Language is more than what we speak. Relationship is language with other human beings. Notwithstanding the question of why relationship remains. Were I only a consumer than relationship would be my consuming the language of other people. To a degree this is what I do in relationship. I consume the verbal and bodily language of others when I listen to them, but what is the point if all I do is listen? Language is a constant active and passive participation. Consuming is only one aspect of that participation. Relationship is also active impact on others. To identify another as friend or enemy is to be aware of and invested in their lives. Relationship fosters my identity and the identities of others. It does not create identity, but draws identity out of loneliness. Within relationship one contributes tangibly to the drawing out of identity of another. The turn from passive consumer to active relationship is a desire born out of loneliness. The end of that desire grounded in hope if one is actually going to act on it.
Here is the why of relationship. The hope on which we actively participate in relationship is our why. Geez that took forever to get to! Thank you for reading this far.
If our hope is to no longer be lonely than a closed consumerism will result. It won't matter what occupies the place of the other with whom we relate. This is in part why the television is such a successful technology. Alone in a room silence is a constant reminder of loneliness. Add a television to that room and it might not matter what is on so long as it is on. The hope is to break the silence and thus break loneliness. Unfortunately loneliness is not broken if silence is broken. One can be lonely in the midst of thousands of people. To hope only for an alleviation of loneliness lacks the depth necessary to actually participate in relationships. As an aside I conclude that loneliness will follow me wherever I go in this state I am in. A hope in culture also seems to amount to a hope in the collective work of lonely people. That is unless the culture is grounded in a hope wholly other than itself yet intrinsic to its existence. With a wink and a nod I point to the Holy.
Our "culture language, relationship, and even our loneliness is put in the service of the Holy when our hope is grounded in the Holy.
This entry is the beginnings of a series of entries. I would like to continue writing about this and other thoughts. Feel free to comment and I will reply. Better is life together.
Blessings
