The Divinity of Relationship

This time of year is such a mixed bag, isn’t it? Thank goodness for a more regular routine. Thank goodness for the kids going back to school. Thanks goodness for cool evenings!  And at the same time, let’s honor the grief of another year gone by, of losing the freedom that summer brings for many of us and of missing precious time with our young adults as they launch into their lives. We can hold ourselves and one another with a little extra care as we all transition from the energy of summer to the energy of the more structured, shorter and cooler days ahead.

Today I want to share some thoughts I’ve been having about relationship.  In his book, How Western Christianity Got it Wrong: Replacing the God of Fear with a Spirituality of Healing, Native American activist, scholar, and wisdom keeper, Randy Woodley states, “Western Christians have often portrayed God as a distant judge primarily concerned with rules rather than relationship.  They have created a God of fear, violence and control, a God designed in their Empire driven cultural image rather than a God embracing and loving the fullness of life on Earth.” (emphasis mine)

In my view, relationship is at the heart of everything. Our relationship with ourselves, one another and the Divine determines how we understand our place in the universe, how we feel and how we act.  The context of our modern lives is doing, achieving, purchasing, accomplishing, proving— following the “rules” and getting what we “deserve.”  But Being?  And being in relation to ourselves and others?  

My work as a trauma therapist supporting people in developing new relationships with their wounding and pain informs my passion for centering healing, holistic relationship.  And the place we start is with our agenda.  What if we dropped the agenda of what we think we are supposed to be, do and have?  What if we dropped the agenda of what we think God approves of or doesn’t approve of, what God wants or doesn’t want from us and for us?  As Randy Woodley argues - our ideas about this are largely informed by the West’s historical need to create a God that supported the same values as Empire: some people are worthy and some are not, the masses need to be punished and controlled, it is justifiable to treat some people as less than human in order to achieve our goals.  Instead we could embrace what Jesus demonstrated throughout his life—compassion, peace, humility, truth and relationships of equality rather than domination.  

I can feel you nodding as you read this and checking the boxes, “Yes, yes yes, I do treat people that way, I believe in compassion and equality and peace.”  I do too.  And when was the last time you told yourself that a certain feeling, thought or behavior you had didn’t belong, wasn’t okay and needed to stop?  When was the last time you went to war with yourself so that you could be different than you are?  And when was the last time you tried, perhaps subtly, to change someone else who was “behaving badly?”  If you are like me, probably about 10 minutes ago. And also probably not so subtly.   

What we are invited into when we have a “God embracing and loving the fullness of life” is not a relationship where everything is perfectly fine and nothing ever needs to change.  Instead, we are invited into is a relationship that starts with dropping our ideas of how we or another should be and moving into interest, curiosity and care.  The only agenda that God has for us, I believe, is to love us into the awareness of our own inherent goodness.  The  Divine wants us to have this relationship with ourselves and all beings.  Perhaps we can start with a touch of curiosity and care towards ourselves and see what possibilities for transformation might arise.