Connection: Restoration in a World of Contempt
You are fundamentally intended for deep and abiding human connection. Contempt starves connection through self-protection, withdrawal, and isolation. The starving relationship held in Contempt, will move anemically; eventually, decaying into relational dysfunction and perhaps even death. However, Compassion and Curiosity, pursued with Courage, revitalize those failing relationships and imbue them with strength and resiliency. Once buoyed and revived, Creativity effects the invitation for both individuals to authentically offer their true self as part a tapestry from which new meaning emerges. Compassion, Curiosity, Courage, and Creativity constitute the fertile soil where authentic intimacy fosters true Connection.
The Beauty of Connection
Connection unfolds through seasons of growth and dormancy. Like a tree gaining root and reaching for the sky, authentic intimacy moves both inward and outward. In the face of another, surfaces some of the most profound experience of ourselves. Our capacity for attunement and relationship grow as our roots dig deeper into each other's souls, and our branches reach out for connections with the world around us.
But this kind of connection does not happen through luck. Instead, those desiring more profound relationship need to pursue and cultivate connection with fierce intentionality and abiding determination. Nothing worth anything will come without cost.
1. Connection in Community
Pursuing connection in the context community does not mean finding someone who is just like you. Instead, it is the process of fostering fellowship with those that invite your most authentic self to blossom, offering an invitation to become more of who you were fundamentally made to be. Likewise, in a healthy and connected community, you will invite others into a fuller and more integrated expression of themselves. This form of healthy and connected community will function as a symphony; each person's soul is playing their unique melody in harmony others while bearing witness to the vitality of their collective song.
2. Connecting Shoulder-to-Shoulder
Another form of connection will happen shoulder-to-shoulder. These relationships form with those people who come alongside in a joint endeavor to meet a common goal. Shoulder-to-shoulder connection can often be short live; spanning the duration of a project or a season of working together. In spite of the frequently temporary nature of this connection, the commonality of purpose can forge deep ties that persist over many years, even decades of life, long after the original objective was achieved. Relationships like these can form through ministry, social work, political campaigns, serving in the military together, business ventures, or something as brief and straightforward as working together at a camp. The strength of shoulder-to-shoulder connection should never be underestimated. It provides shared experience and common language which give the individuals fertile soil for deeper and more meaningful relationship in the future.
3. Connecting Face-to-Face
Face-to-face connection provides the potential for even deeper intimacy. A shoulder-to-shoulder connection can often turn into a face-to-face connection, but this is a move that is not always successfully navigated. When we turn our faces toward one another, we are opening the windows to our souls and inviting another person to join with us in the pursuit of shared being, not just shared activity. Friendships that pursue this face-to-face intimacy in a non-erotic sense can be some of the most profound and most satisfying relationships we can experience in this life. While not always the case, a face-to-face connection is the stuff of romance and eros. Face-to-face intimacy comes as both partners bear the nakedness of their hearts, minds, and sometimes bodies to enact and invite the beauty of authentic, unabashed intimacy. Gazing into the eyes of your most trusted friend, undergirded by commitment, reveals the space where the soul is shaped and formed by the intermingling of each person's being with the other's.
4. Connection with Yourself
Connection with one's self may seem, at first glance, to be counterintuitive. But to offer ourselves in meaningful ways through community, purpose, or interpersonal intimacy, we must know the self that we are offering. Failing to do so will often result in the offering of a persona that feigns vulnerability, lacks depth, and leaves people feeling as though they are trying to become acquainted with a ghost. If we lack self-knowledge, we will only offer our true self haphazardly without an awareness of the profound value of our gift. It would be similar to a person trying to use coins of solid gold in a vending machine.
Connection & the Symphony of Life
Discovering our true identity is a journey that will include connection in community, purpose, and shared intimacy. And as we learn ourselves, we will begin to have a deeper capacity to offer ourselves to others in more meaningful and profound ways. Connection over the course of the lifespan requires a rich diversity of players including old and young, those who think like us and those who do not, those who share our heritage and those that expand it, and ultimately, those who call us out of hiding and encourage our song, our unique contribution to the symphony that is Life.