Close relationships are vital to our psychological and emotional well-being, they can make us or break us, causing us to thrive or regress, for that reason it is compulsory that we carry out continuous assessment of those relationships. Such relationships could be romantic, family, friendship, business, church, mosques, synagogue or other spiritual relationships etc. We must put a magnifying glass to them and check what is going on, to encourage the good and weed out the bad. The good causes us no problem, it is the bad we are concerned about. Some of us take a myopic credulous optimistic view of close relationships, because they are close it can not harm us, because they are family they can not do us wrong, because it carries the label of a romantic relationship then it is kosher, because it use to be good then it is still good, because it is sometimes good then it is always good, because it is spiritual it can’t be toxic, we all know that this is not true if we are honest.
The call is for us to objectively assess our relationship without the romanticism and labelling that hinders us from carrying out an unemotional and unsentimental assessment of the true state of play. Of what use is the intimacy if we carry out ‘our business’ with the light switched off, eyes closed, under the duvet, citing modesty and decency as our excuse? How dark is our darkness? We must dare to look at the stark nakedness of our closest relationships in broad daylight in order that we may accept or discard aspect that are unacceptable, then we can get the most fulfilling, honest and exhilarating relationships.
Such relationships, from time to need to be strip totally naked, with nowhere to hid and inspected in all its glorious or goriest details. Must be seen for all it is and called out for what it is, the good, the bad, the ugly. We carry a fear, a reluctance, hesitation, timidity to face reality head-on and talk about the negative parts of relationships because of the fear of repercussions, of being labelled a critic, a gossiper, a bad person or a judgemental person . Most of us come from a school of deference, a school of unquestioned allegiance, respect, obedience or adherence that allows our closest and dearest get away with murder, we are considered rebellious, controlling and insubmissive if we dare point out atrocious behaviour that is detrimental to both the perpetrators and the victims, we help no one by keeping mum, we are condoning and enabling, we the recipient of such atrocious behaviour are in some sense as guilty as the perpetrators as we do nothing to end it. Yes they will fight us and it is never easy to say no is no, never easy to confront evil or say that this is unacceptable behaviour. For fear, timidity and unwillingness to tolerate the discomfort and annihilation of the confrontation means we do nothing. Shall we continue to sin or allow others to sin that grace may abound? At times silence or inaction is the greater sin.
The desire not to stir up the hornet’s nest or ruffle the feather being the most lame approach to life. Let us ruffle the feather, stir the nest, let us cause the commotion, let us upturn the tables of the money changer, let us cleanse out the temple, let us confront it heads on, let us bring healing and restorations to our relationships. Let us flush out all this false harmony and peace, whilst a storm is brewing underneath, let us demolish this fake conciliatory façade and have true peace.
Shalom!
Beautiful Ivory 