Why we want our relationships to be painful, and what it tells us.
Relationship Stacks
Let's suppose your problems with others are peeves. Let's say you can hold a list or stack of 12 pet peeves about a person. Suppose they change the top one. Are you happier? Yes, for a short period of time, but the 2nd worst peeve now pops up to become the first, and the bottom of the stack is empty space. Well that empty space is easily and naturally filled by you. Remember you could only hold 12 pet peeves at a time, you have an empty compute cycle, an empty bin, a vacuum. Spend 5 more minutes with the person and sure enough, number 12 will pop into the stack. So there is no real improvement in the relationship dynamic at all.
Why? Self-centeredness. Sure they "fixed" their problem but you still have to same stack, just a different mix. It's the same thing, it's the same song, a different beat. It's a remix, it's a cover, but it's the SAME thing.
Relationship and love -- it's about looking beyond and not on the stack. It is not having a stack, for is love a recorder of wrongs? Why? Because love does not NEED the other person to give back, to transact. Love is from one already satisfied. If you are not already satisfied then the relationship is not love, it is use. Now there is mutual use, it's called business. And in relationships it is usually referred to as prostitution (I use this illustration for shock value, it's sometimes useful to amp the volume on the mundane to ear-piercing decibels). But in order to truly love one party must be satisfied or at least their source of satisfaction is not found in any way upon the object of their love, with the other party. Now they are truly free to shower their object (the other party) with true love. Unconditional. Whether there is anything intrinsically loveable about the object is immaterial.
So in our relationships how can we DO this? We cannot. Are you completely satisfied in and of yourself? Are you not dependent on sooo many things physically, mentally, financially, and emotionally? So a system based on needers will find that none are filled, none satisfied (current pop culture just makes it obvious, but we've been building the system since we started eating weird fruit in nice places).
No, we cannot look to one another, nor to creation for our needs, for our true needs to be met. We look to God, who DOES NOT NEED US. He DOES NOT NEED ANYTHING. He truly is LOVE because without needing us or anything He created anyway. And so it can only be through a union and a relationship and a walk with Him that true love can manifest. We are vessels of His love. Vessels hold something that comes from the outside and is then placed inside themselves. And when something on the outside sees fit, they dispense what is inside to something outside them. We are vessels of love, for we are temples of God, we are walking epistles, we are earthen vessels holding inside a tremendous treasure (and that treasure is NOT a thing, but a Person).
And so it is only in and through and by Christ that true love manifests. Otherwise it is going to be mutual use or one-sided manipulation. Eventually the mutual use will break down, the business merger diverges and collapses. Eventually the prostitute leaves to go on to the next trick and the John to the next fix. Eventually the object of manipulation is fully tapped and the manipulator moves on to another mark. Either way the party ends.
So why do we want our self-centered relationships to be painful? Because they are not real, they are not in and of Christ. Why would we want an illusion to feel good for anything more than a season (if it didn't feel good at all, we'd never do it; no one, well few, are tempted to become gluttons with Castor Oil, but Pop Tarts, heck yeah I'm tempted and they seem sooo gooood...for a season).
Let's suppose your problems with others are peeves. Let's say you can hold a list or stack of 12 pet peeves about a person. Suppose they change the top one. Are you happier? Yes, for a short period of time, but the 2nd worst peeve now pops up to become the first, and the bottom of the stack is empty space. Well that empty space is easily and naturally filled by you. Remember you could only hold 12 pet peeves at a time, you have an empty compute cycle, an empty bin, a vacuum. Spend 5 more minutes with the person and sure enough, number 12 will pop into the stack. So there is no real improvement in the relationship dynamic at all.
Why? Self-centeredness. Sure they "fixed" their problem but you still have to same stack, just a different mix. It's the same thing, it's the same song, a different beat. It's a remix, it's a cover, but it's the SAME thing.
Relationship and love -- it's about looking beyond and not on the stack. It is not having a stack, for is love a recorder of wrongs? Why? Because love does not NEED the other person to give back, to transact. Love is from one already satisfied. If you are not already satisfied then the relationship is not love, it is use. Now there is mutual use, it's called business. And in relationships it is usually referred to as prostitution (I use this illustration for shock value, it's sometimes useful to amp the volume on the mundane to ear-piercing decibels). But in order to truly love one party must be satisfied or at least their source of satisfaction is not found in any way upon the object of their love, with the other party. Now they are truly free to shower their object (the other party) with true love. Unconditional. Whether there is anything intrinsically loveable about the object is immaterial.
So in our relationships how can we DO this? We cannot. Are you completely satisfied in and of yourself? Are you not dependent on sooo many things physically, mentally, financially, and emotionally? So a system based on needers will find that none are filled, none satisfied (current pop culture just makes it obvious, but we've been building the system since we started eating weird fruit in nice places).
No, we cannot look to one another, nor to creation for our needs, for our true needs to be met. We look to God, who DOES NOT NEED US. He DOES NOT NEED ANYTHING. He truly is LOVE because without needing us or anything He created anyway. And so it can only be through a union and a relationship and a walk with Him that true love can manifest. We are vessels of His love. Vessels hold something that comes from the outside and is then placed inside themselves. And when something on the outside sees fit, they dispense what is inside to something outside them. We are vessels of love, for we are temples of God, we are walking epistles, we are earthen vessels holding inside a tremendous treasure (and that treasure is NOT a thing, but a Person).
And so it is only in and through and by Christ that true love manifests. Otherwise it is going to be mutual use or one-sided manipulation. Eventually the mutual use will break down, the business merger diverges and collapses. Eventually the prostitute leaves to go on to the next trick and the John to the next fix. Eventually the object of manipulation is fully tapped and the manipulator moves on to another mark. Either way the party ends.
So why do we want our self-centered relationships to be painful? Because they are not real, they are not in and of Christ. Why would we want an illusion to feel good for anything more than a season (if it didn't feel good at all, we'd never do it; no one, well few, are tempted to become gluttons with Castor Oil, but Pop Tarts, heck yeah I'm tempted and they seem sooo gooood...for a season).
posted by GBT at
Thursday, November 17, 2005
