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… there’s nothing more intimate in life than simply being understood. And understanding someone else.
Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle
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When you hear the word “intimacy” in our present culture you almost always think of it in a physical context – and hardly ever as Brad Meltzer refers to it.
This tells you something significant about our culture.
It tells you that in a material culture we are far more physical than interpersonal, cordial, communal, familial, or spiritual.
Just look at the drivel that emanates from the “entertainment” industry. One denizen of that environ recently offered naked pictures of herself (ugh!) to “get out the vote” for Democrats. Go figure?
Yes, we have destroyed, or badly injured, the idea of “intimacy” (and of sexuality) by our ignorance as to what intimacy is and what an absolutely critical, indispensable role it plays in human well-being, friendship, and cordial and communal relationships with others.
Frankly, there is no friendship without the intimacy Mr. Meltzer identifies it. The health of a human being is dependent on intimacy.
We are social beings – meant to be known and to know others. We are recipients of life and hence recipients by nature for life – bound to be received and to receive others.
Likewise we are a story people. We live by narrative, learn by narrative, record narrative, gain wisdom and insight by narrative, worship through narrative.
Telling and receiving another’s story is sacred, and the bedrock of our psychological welfare and the psychological well-being of another. That is the field of real intimacy.
Yes, we are contented and feel whole when another person hears our story and accepts it, receives it, carries it in their own unfolding life.
Today we are far from the intimacy Brad Meltzer identifies.
Our well-being and survival depends on moving toward the intimacy Mr. Meltzer identifies. Short of that objective and disorder and discontent grows and grows, and brings with it homicides, suicides, adulteries, loneliness, corruptions, betrayals, hostilities, divisions, broken families and failed marriages, sexual predators, psychological illnesses, angers, addictions and depressions.
Get “intimacy” right or suffer the grave consequences. We are made for one another – far more than merely what is material and physical.
Shalom.
… the essential issue is no longer between Catholicism, on the one side, and Protestantism, on the other, but between Christianity and Chaos … Civilization – and by this I mean … the whole moral and artistic organization of Europe – has not in itself the power of survival. It came into being through Christianity, and without it has no significance or power to command allegiance … It is no longer possible … to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis on which it rests. (Emphasis added.)
Evelyn Waugh, in Joseph Pearce’s Literary Converts
… the common tradition of Christianity … has made Europe what it is … It is in Christianity that our arts have developed; it is in Christianity that the laws of Europe have … been rooted. It is against a background of Christianity that all our thoughts have significance. (Emphasis added.)
T. S. Eliot, in Notes on the Definition of Culture
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Waugh and Eliot and others have seen, and so stated, that it is upon the essential nature of Christianity which Europe and Western Civilization (America, included) rests.
Yet, none of our politicians, nor press mavens, nor media types, nor judges or lawyers, nor corporate heads, nor intellectuals in “the academy,” and surely not the lightweights that talk loosely of “democratic socialism,” seem to have the faintest idea that this might just be so.
Such ignorance has found its place in those who have recently occupied the Oval Office. Sad as it is, the worthy and amply recorded views of Waugh, Eliot and others appear lost to the hierarchy at the Vatican in a number of ways including in responding to predatory clerics. What a terrible irony to see the venerable seat of Christianity do such harm to Christendom.
The truth of the matter, this blindness explains Brexit and the dangers of flooding Europe with those who are rivals to Christian belief and are all the more unlikely to integrate into European culture and nations in a period of radical Muslim resurgence.
Closer to home, this is why “open borders” is most destructive. Why loose talk of socialism is destructive. Why one can reasonably be concerned as to the consequences of the “sexual revolution” which has been so damaging to individuals, and the institutions of family and marriage. Why racial division is so costly, and why Left wing fascism that we see in the streets must be addressed by law enforcement, politicians, state – local and federal government – and why we must have the will to investigate and subject to prosecution those have been implicated in scandalous misuse of national security documents, and those who have schemed to “cook up” evidence to defeat the 2016 Republican candidate for President and drive him from office.
From top to bottom we have in the present moment grave problems facing us. Problems that pose a danger to the fundamental ideas that formed America and have given us decades of domestic peace, freedom and equal treatment under the law, prosperity, unity and community.
We, the average citizens of this great nation, must step up and speak up – lest we lose a nation, a civilization and a way of life.
Shalom.
Postscript for Lay Catholics – It seems we have an obligation to protect Christianity, to sustain a vigorous public and private adherence to our faith, and ensure that our spiritual heritage is protected and preserved. Without it, we are likely to expire as a culture and civilization. Time to join hands with our kin in Europe and other countries with whom we share faith. Does God not expect this of us?
I often wonder what the world would be like today if some of our modern religions taught that self-knowledge … was the paramount goal of the spiritual path.
Randy Davida
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I might frame what Mr. Davila (the Publisher of The Mastery of Self: A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom) said a little differently.
I might say that we would all be far better served if we realized that religious narratives address our human development and well-being – that they speak to our full growth – psychologically, socially, emotionally, inter-personally, intellectually and spiritually.
As to our spiritual growth think of psyche (Greek for soul); and I suggest you do too.
Our spiritual growth is growth of our psyche – the deepest form of self. Religious narratives present a dimension of observation, insight and understanding that enriches us at the very core of our being – in the soul/psyche.
Frankly, far too many people in our culture (and particularly among those who wish to govern us) neglect their full growth and development and present evidence of this daily.
They are as to full human development – lost souls – confined to error, ego, ideology, desire for status, wealth and attention … and, regrettably prone to poor, and even destructive, ideas and policies. In a word – we are poorly served and poorly led by those who (forsaking religion and religious narrative) have little wisdom and not much of use to offer us.
My “take-away” from Mr. Davila’s words is this – we neglect religion, do not see its narrative as useful and informative in a very fundamental way, and turn our back on the ageless wisdom of our faith and, hence, we face a multitude who seek to lead us without knowing who they are and who we are.
Living without the self-knowledge contained in religious narratives is destined to produce error, ignorance and egotists prone to foolishness and serious mistake.
Each of us would be wise to take only the pulse of those in public life as a way to monitor the state of chaos, calamity and confusion present today – while focusing on our individual acquisition of the wisdom and insight present in religious narrative. Absent that – the unknowing are led by the unknowing.
Shalom.
Postscript – As some of you know I am trained – in law, government and politics, international relations and American foreign policy, and theology. I have long been interested in the relationship between faith and secular culture. After a great deal of reading, thought and experience, one has to conclude that neglecting our religious heritage is a very unwise thing to do – for religious narratives deal entirely in the human person and his or her peace and prosperity – personal, communal, familial, psychological , intellectual and spiritual. Neglecting religion produces poor results.
The important lesson that the family taught was the existence of the only unbreakable bond … between human beings.
The decomposition of this is surely America’s most urgent social problem.
Allan Bloom, in The Closing of the American Mind
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Imagine what might happen if people began to examine public policy at the national and state level from this perspective: what does this policy do to promote intact families?
Asking that one question, I suspect, would raise real doubts about our public policies. Indeed, I bet if that became a threshold question – the negative effects of policy on family would lead to abandonment of a very significant number of government activities that have produced harm rather than good.
It seems to be we do little to fortify the family. Take divorce for example – most states entertain “no fault” divorce. Want a divorce? No problem. Divide a child from his father? No problem.
Think about the present subsidy going to single, unmarried women with children who continue to have more children with other men. How does this help anyone? The children? The women? The men who fathered these children? A community? A city? A state? A nation? The family?
Ironically, divorce lawyers seem untainted by what they do … I’ve not met one that wonders what effect divorce has on this society.
Those who advanced the “sexual revolution” rarely seem to be asked what effect they have had on family, on children, women and men? On intimacy? On human dignity and maturity, responsibility, virtue, honor, loyalty, fidelity?
In sum, I guess I am somewhat astonished that we never seem to examine what we do in vital areas and the public course we set even though we see injury and disarray among American families – so fundamental to our health, peace and prosperity.
Shalom.
