Families in the Abstract

Human relationships are difficult. Painfully difficult. The only thing that makes them more difficult than the intangibles already present are material things. I think that there are a number of different ways we can attempt to understand these difficulties--one of which is simply "offering them up". . . Except that that's not really simple. I have walked away from a number of friendships in my life, as I've mentioned before. Indeed, my tendency to cut ties or have people drift away was so pervasive, I feared on more than one occasion that the same would happen to my husband and I when we were dating. At any rate, circumstances did not permit me to screw that one up! I can ask of other relationships what I don't ask of my marriage (because I think the answers are both profoundly simple and simply profound)--what causes relationships to continue? Frequently, the answer is need. Perhaps it is a feature of post-lapsarian relationships that we must need each other in order to overcome difference. But material needs, while binding people together, do so in unpleasant ways. People neither like relying on others, not being relied upon, at least when the understanding is incomplete. Bad feelings fester. Breakdowns ensue. And the temptation is to run away. I am tempted to run away. To never have the bad feelings come up again because I am so far removed from the people and situation that I can happily block it from my mind and get on with my life. And never to be confronted with the judgment, scorn, and misunderstanding of those whom I have helped. In short, the temptation is to end the relationship. For those relationships that I have not been able to simply walk away from, I am grateful. For those I have been able to reconcile, if not mend and rebuild, I am also grateful. I hope to be grateful one day for not being able to flee from the relationships I would like to sever. I'm not there yet.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
it is in dying that we awake to eternal life.

~St. Francis of Assisi