I recently commented on a blog post where the question was: How does a good relationship feel?
In short I said that how one feels in a good relationship is predicated on the nature and quality of one’s previous relationships and one’s perspective as shaped by those experiences. You can read my entire comment at the Ning Community – AA Book Clubs
One of the aspects of relationship I address in my response is intimacy. Intimacy is a necessary part of any healthy relationship. And yet it is something that many of us here in America fear. Despite our desire to stand strong we want–yearn—to feel connected. Denial of this innate human need is like a house divided and fighting to stand. Strong and sturdy houses take more than two feet to remain firm and planted.
Author and speaker, Marianne Williamson, cites in her work, Illuminata, that: “Intimacy is depth of learning.” She goes on to say that, Honoring our connection to another person is a way of honoring God. In this vein, Islam teaches that when caring for one’s family the individual worships God. Marianne adds that, Our intimate love is our partner only a holy adventure. The purpose of intimate partnership is to midwife perfection in each other. Intimacy,” she writes, …challenges us to a higher level of participation than the limited thought forms of romantic delusion or false morality.
My work as a psychotherapist–my experience as a wife of 27 years and mother of 3 (ages 21, 16 and 10) has and continually teaches me that intimacy terrifies us as Americans. Of this Williamson writes, Fear of intimacy is a fear of death. In a world where we have been taught to believe that the bolstering of our individual power, is the greatest good, it is difficult to feel that the melting of the walls surrounding us is something to be desired.
And yet she is clear to expound: In order to be healed we must reveal our wounds.
Blessed are they that suffer… those who are poor in spirit… for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
All of my stories grapple with the aspect of intimacy. The major and minor characters in my collection of short stories, Keeper of Secrets…Translations of an Incident, though successful by society’s standards carry deep wounds—injuries that their external accomplishments can and never will heal.
My characters’ abilities to let go and let divine power and intervention have full sway is as complicated by their egos and competitive spirit as their fears of dissolution into the greatest intimacy anyone can experience—total acceptance into loving relationship with God. This is particularly true for those in my novel, The House.
Just as we are primed here in America to expect rejection from others, we have almost taken it for granted that God does not love us. I’ve often wondered the purpose of the statement, God Bless America—unless that is, we fear God will, and has not done so.
If intimacy is a path where not only the walls separating is dissolve through connection—a mystical journey challenging our romantic delusions and I would add those of any religion that seeks to justify its existence by judging and castigating its participants and those who refuse it–or simply a holy adventure in seeking and accepting the truth of self through receiving it with blessings from another—then perhaps we need to move into our fear.
Perhaps our call is to embrace our fear of death–before it claims us–as it does all in physical form. Receive divine and universal grace available and waiting for all. Grant benevolence to each other—as I demonstrate in my stories—and ultimately ourselves, as only humans through intimate connection can.