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Renewing Relationships My son and his friends took on a new project this week. They decided to fix up a couple of broken-down old bicycles. An excellent plan. But while I imagined mechanical repair, chain-oiling, rust-eliminating, the replacement of parts that were broken with parts that were whole, the 12-year-old mind had but a single notion: new paint. The bikes practically glow in the dark, but they still don’t work. You may inspect the results if you wish, in the garden behind the church. I still have hope. Surely the logical next step is to make the bikes ridable. In this as in many things, I am struck by the way children have the ability to startle and surprise. Their thinking so often is off-center from that of adults. Being in relationship with children is constantly challenging. Every time my children catch me by surprise, I find I’m offered a new opportunity to practice patience. Rather than satisfy my immediate desire to utter incoherent cries of frustration over spilled paint, I am given an opportunity to practice renewing the relationship. And also an opportunity to explain that it takes paint thinner to remove spilled paint; little is accomplished by rubbing it with soapy water. They’re good kids. It’s worth remembering that adult relationships also have the ability to startle and surprise. This is especially true right at the beginning, just after the first glow of infatuation has dimmed to a more muted appreciation of the other, and the lover begins to see the first signs that the beloved is not, in fact, perfect. Most of the couples that come to me for weddings are well past the infatuation stage. Many who come to the altar have lived together as partners for years, and see marriage as an affirmation of their commitment rather than its culmination. It is a lovely thing to see, rather like a long-married couple that decides to renew their vows. But there are the—usually quite young—couples who have not yet caught on to the difficulties posed by loving and living together. I sometimes remind them of what T.S. Eliot said: that each new venture is “a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling [and] undisciplined squads of emotion." We may come into a relationship with untested equipment for dealing with conflict, especially a relationship with someone we love. Our tools for engaging in areas of disagreement may not always be the best. And the strong emotions that arise from living together, especially when combined with the expectation of bliss, may make it that much harder to deal with disagreement or disappointment. Consider the contrast with a business setting, where (most of the time), we make our expectations clear, and the other person is clear in return. “I’d like 12 cans of blue spray paint.” “I’m sorry, we only have green.” “OK, green is fine.” “Would you like some paint thinner with that?” But in a close relationship, feelings enter in. “I asked you to buy blue paint. Why would you think green would be OK?” Underlying this statement may be all sorts of confused feelings: Don’t you think what I want is important? Don’t you respect my opinion? Don’t you listen to me when I speak? Don’t you care about me enough to bring home blue paint? These questions typically evoke similar questions: Don’t you think I would have brought home blue paint if they had it? Do you think I’m an idiot? Eventually people who mature in their relationship learn to avoid this sort of pointless dispute—or at least they do if both parties are acting out of love, goodwill, and a basic level of mental health. Mental health is a basic component of a good relationship. Relationships may not be safe, and cannot be healthy, when the conflict arises from substance abuse or mental illness. That’s a different level of problem. But in the ordinary relationship, where conflict arises from everyday friction and misunderstanding, conflict can be an invitation to deepen and strengthen the relationship. Not every conflict, perhaps, but conflicts that tend to recur, can be a signal to look for an underlying misunderstanding, assumption, or need that isn’t being met. Conflict can be a signal that it’s time to sit down together and ask, “We keep arguing about this one thing. What’s going on with us that’s causing these arguments?” By seeking to know the other better rather than seeking simply to extinguish the unwanted behavior; by treating conflict as a signal rather than a personal assault; people speaking honestly and with love can move toward greater intimacy. The relationship is renewed and revitalized, is woven together more strongly. But the most difficult aspect of relationships may not be the surprises or the conflicts. The hardest thing to deal with may be stagnation. All relationships: parent-child, lover and beloved, friend and friend can stagnate. They can become stale and unsatisfying; dull and rote; empty when they could be full. A friend once confided that she was concerned because her marriage felt empty, stagnated. She and her husband had just come back from a weekend at a resort. The children had stayed with their grandmother. They had fun together, as they had when they were dating. But despite her high expectations, nothing changed when they returned. Life fell back into its ordinary pattern, busy but empty. I could not then, and cannot now, diagnose what was wrong with my friend’s relationship. I can see, though—now better than when she talked with me—that the weekend away did not address the underlying issues in their relationship. Their weekend away was a bit like my son’s approach to “fixing up” the broken bicycles: bright colors, applied relentlessly. The bicycles were still broken. Nonetheless, the idea of recapturing the feelings of courtship is a good one. All the best moments in relationships—parental love, erotic love, friendship—involve feelings of special warmth and affection. More than anything they stimulate a kind of glow, a happiness, or bliss. These feelings don’t come from the other person, although the other person may be a stimulus. These feeling reside here, in us, in the heart and mind. This spirit of love, this glow of bliss, is the renewal each of us can bring to our relationships. Consider what would happen if in the everyday encounters of a stagnating relationship each of us were beaming out love rather than annoyance and inattention. Returning to moments of love and affection—re-experiencing those feelings—is one form of Buddhist meditation practice. It is an exercise that helps the practitioner extend the feeling of love and compassion to every being in the world. The Sufi poet also identifies the glow of love as something precious, something that links one person to another: “Ever since happiness heard your name it has been running through the streets trying to find you…wanting the beautiful warmth of your heart’s fire.” It’s sometimes said that relationships are renewed by three simple actions: attention, affection, and appreciation. Often we give each other “attention” only to discuss logistics, to criticize, to complain. How different an experience our attention would be for our loved ones if our messages were, as often as possible, messages of affection and appreciation. What would happen, in each relationship we know, if our every word and gesture said, more or less, “Ever since happiness heard your name it has been running through the streets trying to find you”? Attention, affection, appreciation. Suppose each of us were to reach deep into our most cherished memories, and allow them to flood our souls with love. What would happen in our lives if each day we awoke to this sea of joy and bliss? I do not minimize the need for mature discussion and problem-solving that an adult relationship requires. But even if there are problems that must be attacked with intellectual vigor, perhaps the stage can first be set with love. People say that to love others it is first necessary to love yourself, and that to do so honestly may be difficult. Each of us accumulates over the years dents and scrapes and rust like those broken-down bicycles out in the garden. But it is important that we embrace what is broken in ourselves with the same love we embrace what is strong and good, because that is the only way we can begin to make ourselves whole. We must not settle for a bright coat of paint; we must seek real transformation. And that is our own task, not the task of our loved ones. Our commitment to our relationships first means a commitment to ourselves, and to the process of making whole. At every stage of life, we have been and will be a glorious gift to the ones we love. Each of us has been and will be, to someone, to many people, at various moments in our lives, the shiny bicycle under the Christmas tree. Yes, we have dents and scratches, but they are honorably won in the struggles and joys that make up our lives. And this is true as well of our loved ones, who have been and will be gifts to us, if only we remember to look at them with the love that is in our hearts. Renewal. It is more than bright paint applied externally. Renewal is the warmth of our heart’s fire, once again welcoming home the happiness that has heard our names. We can stop running around the streets searching for love. Love is here within us, all the time, waiting to be experienced. Renewal is within our hearts, awaiting the communion we create through deeds of kindness and acts of love. (1) 2nd Reading, Hafiz, Sufi Poet, “ Several Times in the Last Week” ( Translated by Daniel Ladinsky):
(2.) Barbara DeAngelis, in Relationships as a Bridge to Divine Love, (Hay House 2001) (with Deepak Chopra). (3.) 1st Reading, No. 441, Jacob Trapp, “To Worship”:
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