03/15/2021 – Daily Wisdom

Whenever we enter into relationships that bring us close to another person or to other people, we usually begin with this initial experience of attraction. We feel, for example, in this first stage, we will never be lonely again, we have found the answer. We see this in religious communities and, of course, we see it in couples in their early stages of falling in love. And then, that first stage begins to wear off. (…) We begin to enter into power struggles. Demands and expectations begin to form areas of conflict. Relationships often become very blaming relationships. We blame the other person or the community or the structures for disappointing us. And then when we blame, we usually try in some way or other to punish the other for disappointing us. How do we love those closest to us then? I think the first way is that we must learn to see the relationship, the close, intimate relationship, as a kind of a ground on which we stand with the other. We stand together in that relationship. In other words, it isn’t my relationship, it is the relationship that unites us. We stand as equal sharers in the mystery of that sacred ground.