“Relationships are not to be understood and fixed and solved; they…are mysteries to be enjoyed.
The best participants in the mystery we call relationship seem to be the people who don’t need to understand everything, the ones who aren’t out to prove anything, those humble enough to accept when they are wrong and hod their tongues when they are right, the people who don’t have an agenda, who aren’t in a hurry, and who don’t need the credit when things go right and don’t pass the blame when things go wrong.
These are the rare souls who seem to be able to hold their arms wide open and embrace fully the mystery of loving and the joy of being loved.”—Matthew Kelly, The Seven Levels of Intimacy
I read it, and I believe it, seek to live and be such way; and yet I seem to fail, or struggle, on a fundamental level to foster such relations.
By nature, maybe such are by their nature rare, and—even when seeking—difficult to foster. Maybe they are not something to be fostered at all, but found—gifted—when they do appear in life.
How do you find? How, with humility, do we offer, share, and show ourselves without agenda and hope to receive such from another discerning and reciprocating soul?
Earlier in the book, he writes:
“Life is self-revelation. It’s about revealing yourself. Every day, in a thousand ways, we reveal ourselves to the people around us in the world. Everything we say and do reveals something about who we are. Even the things we don’t say and the things we don’t do tell others something about us. Life is about sharing ourselves with humanity at this moment in history.”
That’s pretty deep for a beginning smile and simple “hello,” but how—in a world of guarded selves—do we let our truest selves show? If rejected, is that a lesson to hide away again; or test to continue on—in spite of its alienness to some.
In a world quick to judge intent and agenda when none are meant, how do we proceed in the spirit of not needing to understand, having nothing to prove, offering goodwill accepting the gift—and ourselves—might be rejected on site? How do we condition our spirits to accept rejection, labeling, and still proceed in lived openness and hope for the mystery of new and fostered relationships of shared affinity?
I don’t have these answers? If someone does, I’d love to know. Until then, I write, retreating into fictions that, within, bear truths. If read, found, and affecting; maybe such might be a beginning point for connection with similar mind and spirit.
Also, in the book, he writes:
“Relationships keep us honest. They provide the mirrors necessary to see and know ourselves. Isolated and alone, we can convince ourselves of all sorts of crazy things, but other people keep it real for us by drawing us out of our imaginary worlds.”
I don’t want to live in fictions. I do not want the isolation, to seek first life in imaginary worlds and lives; but drawn back from the fictions, how do we bring with us the ideals and spirit that make them beautiful?
How do we build those relationships? How do we make that life, reveal that—our true—self?
I don’t know, so still I write; not a fiction today, just an open wondering praying for, perhaps, a beginning to a conversation; start to a depth that may enrich the mystery.