The Relational Soul E-Book

Richard Plass

• Herausgeber: IVP Formatio
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 250

Beschreibung

What does loneliness tell us?"Be it chronic or acute, slight or significant, loneliness is proof of our relational design. At the core of our being is this truth—we are designed for and defined by our relationships," former pastors Plass and Cofield write. "We were born with a relentless longing to participate in the lives of others. Fundamentally, we are relational souls."Our ability to make deep and emotionally satisfying connections rests on the capacity to trust, and we all know trust can be difficult. Early-life relational "programming" and patterns of attachment can serve as blueprints for relationships later in life, whether good or bad. But no matter our conditioning, God is out to reclaim and restructure the deepest terrain of the human soul by helping us shed our reactive "False Self" and put on our receptive "True Self." Through spiritual disciplines and a conscious participation in the love of the Father, Son and Spirit, we transform our self-awareness and our connection with other people.Authored by counselor Dr. Richard Plass and spiritual director James Cofield, The Relational Soul brings together concepts from psychology and spiritual formation. Each chapter includes introductory stories and practical "If this is true, what about you?" questions to help readers engage in relationships in more life-giving ways. When the presence of Christ and community connects with a soul that is open, we witness the miracle of transformation.

Leseprobe

THE RELATIONAL SOUL

Moving from False Self to Deep Connection

Richard Plass and James Cofield

www.IVPress.com/books

InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL [email protected]

©2014 by Richard Plass and James Cofield

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press®is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website atwww.intervarsity.org.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation,copyright ©1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

While all stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Cover design: Cindy Kiple Images: yellow texture: ©hudlemm/iStockphotostill life: ©Elisabeth Ansley/Trevillion Images

ISBN 978-0-8308-9651-6 (digital) ISBN 978-0-8308-3587-4 (print)

We could not have written this book without the loving and life-giving presence of our wives. Through them we have learned to trust more fully and thus relate more deeply. We dedicate this book to them, Sallie and Joy.

Our children have also taught and helped us in ways they cannot know.

Rich: To my children, Jennifer, Rebekah, Elisabeth (and their husbands Troy, Ben and Chris), Margaret, Matthew and Michelle, I say thank you.

Jim: To my children, Justin (and his wife Kristina) and Ashley, I also say thank you.

Contents

1 Our Relational Reality

Created for Connecting

2 Attachment

Learning to Relate Starts Early in Life

3 Memory

Our Relational Control Center

4 The Reactive False Self

A Mistrusting Soul

5 Gift of Grace

God’s Particular Presence

6 The Receptive True Self

A Trusting Soul

Interlude: Before We Move Forward

7 Self-Understanding

Connecting Head and Heart

8 Community

Fostering Soulful Relationships

9 Core Spiritual Disciplines

Engaging with God

10 Transformation

Changing the Way We Live

Acknowledgments

Appendix 1: Additional Reading

Appendix 2: Making a Life Map

Appendix 3: An Overview of the Enneagram

Appendix 4: A Guide for Group Discussion

Notes

Resources from CrossPoint

Praise for The Relational Soul

About the Authors

Formatio

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

1

Our Relational Reality

Created for Connecting

Harry lived directly across the road from my (Rich) house in upstate New York. He was alone in his mid-nineteenth-century farmhouse, which was barely hanging on to its earlier days of beauty. Harry would occasionally eat dinner with our family, paying my mother four or five dollars a week for his meals. His claim to fame at our dinner table was pouring chicken gravy on my mother’s homemade apple pie. How that tasted I’m not sure; I never tried it!

One night when I was twelve years old I woke up frightened out of my wits. It sounded as if someone was kicking in the front door, which was immediately below my bedroom. I heard my father jump out of bed and head down the stairs, muttering things I cannot repeat here. Opening the door he came face to face with Harry. Harry barged into our front room, settled into a yawning floral blue chair without a word and in a matter of minutes was sound asleep. My father climbed the stairs still muttering pretty much what he did on the way down. By 6 a.m. Harry had disappeared back into his old farmhouse.

Harry’s midnight episodes continued over the next six months. He routinely woke up my family by pounding on the door. Each time my father muttered as he headed down the stairs to let Harry into the front room, where Harry slept until early morning. These episodes stopped when Harry was taken to the hospital. My mother told me he was terminally ill with cancer. Several weeks later Harry died alone.

Many things struck me about Harry. There was the thing about pouring gravy on apple pie. And there was his beating on our door in the middle of the night. But what made even more of an impression on me was his loneliness, which was evident even to me as a young boy. Some evenings Harry would sit on the front steps of his farmhouse with his German shepherd next to him. Occasionally, I crossed the road and asked Harry how he was doing. He always answered, “Pretty good.” But I knew he was sad, because the conversation never went much further. At that point I would throw sticks for the dog to retrieve while Harry watched. At dusk Father would whistle or Mother would call, and I would head home. When I said, “Night,” Harry would raise his hand with a gentle wave. But he remained silent.

Harry’s loneliness had its own story line. He was divorced before my parents built their house across the road from his farm in 1933. He hung on to the memory of better days through an empty old house that, by size and design, signaled a time when conversation and personal connection was something real. When I knew him, his house was the only connection to others who mattered most to him. Its di­lapidated condition mirrored the sadness of his alienation from his former wife and only son, connections that had been lost for years.

Harry never found his way toward reconciliation, and consequently he lived with unresolved pain unknown to others and mostly disowned by himself. He never really understood his own soul or a way toward life-giving communion. He settled for what was available—the companionship of a dog, the kid who lived across the road, a night out here and there, and chicken gravy on homemade apple pie. He tolerated his loneliness until his end was in sight. At that point his way of coping no longer worked. In his final months he could not help but pound on our front door in the middle of the night in a desperate attempt to find some relief through distant connection.

Our Relational Life

Harry didn’t vote for loneliness. But that is where he found himself. And that is where many of us find ourselves. Hopefully, we are not as desperate as Harry was. But many have experienced an inner void that fosters anxiety over the empty places in our souls. “Practically every human being . . . has experienced that strange inner gnawing, that mental hunger, that unsettling unrest that makes us say, ‘I feel lonely.’ Loneliness is one of the most universal experiences.”1

Loneliness is “the broad way” that many of us travel. We develop ways to cope with its sadness, ways to manage its pain, ways to exist with its emptiness. But the longer we live, the greater the chance we will find ourselves in deep shadows where the darkness proves difficult to bear. Like Harry, we wind up “knocking on a door.”

What does loneliness tell us about ourselves? Be it chronic or acute, slight or significant, loneliness is proof of our relational design. At the core of our being is this truth—we are designed for and defined by our relationships. We were born with a relentless longing to participate in the lives of others. Fundamentally, we are relational souls. We cannot not be relational. In fact, all of our knowing is interpersonal in that it emerges from a soul that is structured relationally.2 We cannot exist well without connection and communion with another. Relational reactivity and alienation is death for the soul. It was for Harry. It is for us as well.

Our individual relational reality was born of the connection of our parents. Without the loving and nurturing presence of others after birth, we would not have survived. The relationships in our family of origin shaped and molded our lives. As we grew into adulthood, our relationships influenced the state of our souls for good or for ill.

We cannot reach our potential without healthy relationships. Like an acorn maturing into a mighty oak, we grow into maturity through healthy relationships. Life-giving relationships are the source and the fruit of life. When our relationships foster appropriate connection and lead to deep communion with others, we become more fully alive. Deep and meaningful relationships are both the means and the result of living into our potential.

Profound relational connection and communion is “the narrow way” Jesus spoke of. We may live in an incredible house and have a wonderful job, but if our closest relationships are fractured, life is miserable. Wealth and power prove to be poor substitutes for matters of the heart. The reason we might “gain the whole world but lose [our] own soul” (Matthew 16:26) is simple—we are constituted relationally. We are neurologically configured for and by relationships. Why do we carry this design?

Designed in the Image of the Trinitarian God

We are relational beings because we are created in the image of a relational God. By definition the Christian God exists in relationship as Father, Son and Spirit. While existing as three distinct persons, they share one divine essence that is described as love (1 John 4:8). God can be love only if God exists as community. The pure love the divine persons have for each other is unconditionally giving in its character. The Father gives himself for the Son, and the Son gives himself for the Father. The gift of each for the other is personified in the Spirit. And not only do they give unconditionally, they receive each other in the same manner. That is the nature of agapē. It is radical giving and receiving. It is perfect communion and union. It is truly beautiful and good.

We were created with this relational likeness and we long for relational connection because God exists in a relationship of love. God designed us to enjoy giving and receiving. God designed us to be for another. God designed us to receive from another. We even receive our understanding of our self in realtionship with another. This is what it means to be a relational being. Because we bear God’s relational likeness, we can commune with God. We also have the capability of connecting with each other in mutually self-flourishing ways.

Designed as Male and Female

Maleness and femaleness is the fundamental way we carry our relational design. Interestingly, the English word sexuality comes from the Latin word sexus, which means “being divided, cut off, separated from another.” We typically don’t think of sexuality in terms of separation, but that is precisely what it is. Our sexual desire, drive and energy show we are separated and long to be connected (both physically and emotionally).

When Adam was alone, God said his condition was not good. So God brought the animals to Adam for the purpose of finding a partner. Since no animal could be his soulmate, God created a “suitable” companion. The Hebrew word here suggests correspondence to Adam’s nature. This companion would be his “helper.” The Hebrew word here carries the idea of mutual support. We can think in terms of an A-frame building—each side needs the other in order to maintain its integrity.

Needless to say, Adam was a happy man. To his delight he now had an answer to his incompleteness. He was no longer alone and separated. He could now communicate, connect and commune with one who was like him. God pronounced this state of affairs “good.”

Even though Adam could commune with his Creator, “it is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). God knew Adam needed communion and union with another human. Out of love Adam and Eve were created as distinct individuals (male and female) who, like the trinitarian God, enjoyed community. Eve was Adam’s exact counterpart. Their maleness and femaleness became mutually life giving in many ways.

Why do we feel so much energy in our sexuality? Because we are created by and for intimacy. Our sexual energy is proof of our relational essence. We can hardly stand a “divided” condition because we are relational at our core. We will feel most alive in healthy relationships (including but not limited to marriage). We feel most dead or separated in unhealthy relationships (or no relationship).

Harry found this to be true. He had lost his most significant relational connections. And when he lost them he lost what God had etched into the very fabric of his being. Relationships are not just important priorities. They are essential for our physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being. We cannot live fully alive apart from loving connection with others. Even God is constituted this way.

Our Relational Universe

We are structured by and for relationships. Our relationships determine whether we have and enjoy life. A deep participation in the life of another is the lifeblood of the soul. Relational connection is that profound and that necessary. It is that basic.

But the necessity of relational participation is not only a human reality. The relational reality implanted in our DNA is also at the core of the universe. All reality is relational. That is to say, all of creation is designed for someone or something else, and all of creation is designed to receive from someone or something. A flourishing universe depends on the relational design of healthy giving and receiving.

From a Christian perspective the universe receives the gift of life from God, who is present in all of the created order. God actually participates in the world, and the world finds its life in God. God didn’t merely create the world: God sustains the world; God inhabits the world. Without the Spirit of God giving life to the created order it would cease to exist. There is no place where we can escape God’s presence (Psalm 139:7-8). God has a life-giving relationship with the universe, and the universe has a life-dependent relationship with God. As Scripture says, “When you send your Spirit, new life is born to replenish all the living of the earth” (Psalm 104:30).

This is what Paul affirmed when he said to the Athenians, “For in him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28). He made it clear that God “gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need” (Acts 17:25). Paul is more explicit and specific in the book of Colossians. Speaking of Christ’s role in sustaining life he writes, “He [Christ] existed before everything else, and he holds all creation together” (Colossians 1:17). Christ is the source of life, the cosmic nucleus around which all creation revolves. Apart from his continuous, actual relational presence, the world would cease to exist.

From Old Testament times through the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity it was assumed that God was actually present and actively enlivening all of life. People took for granted God’s relational participation in all creation. It was also assumed that all creation pointed to God’s sustaining presence. It was a sacramental way of seeing the world. Over the course of the last six hundred years a gradual but profound conceptual shift occurred in the West. We became secular in our orientation. In other words, from a secular perspective God no longer sustains the universe. And even if there is a God who created all (whether by immediate declaration or mediated evolution), that God is “way over there” and the world is “way over here” with a life of its own. Consequently, for most Western persons of the twenty-first century there is a radical separation between supernatural and natural realities, between the sacred and the secular. There is a rational explanation for what we see. Natural laws govern the universe and human relationships.

To be sure, God is clearly above, beyond and distinct from his creation. He is transcendent (to use a theological term). But God is also immanent. He is close, at the center of all reality. He participates in the created order through his Son and Spirit. Even natural laws are dependent on the presence of God. A sacramental understanding honors both God’s transcendence (farness) and immanence (closeness). A sacramental posture toward life says that through his Spirit God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.

We readily acknowledge the relational discontent that took place in history prior to the last six centuries. There were plenty of relational failures between individuals and nations for thousands of years. We are not idealizing the past. But a secular orientation creates another huge challenge for relationships. It displaces the mystery of God’s actual life-giving presence. Gone is the vision that assumes that God’s personal presence is the opportunity and the power to engage relationally, that God’s personal presence is the fuel of our relational engine, that God’s personal presence is love. Gone is the understanding that every loving relationship we experience owes its existence to the actual presence of Christ’s Spirit. Scripture is clear that “whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God” (James 1:17). This includes the gift of loving, participatory, engaged relationships. So when we see children playing together, a husband lovingly engaged with his wife and friends enjoying each other’s company, we are witnessing the life-giving presence of God in the created order.

We languish when God is distant, remote and uninvolved—there is ultimately little reason or capacity to trust. We are on our own, and life is too dangerous to be vulnerable. When God is “way out there” and we are “way over here,” the soul suffers under the weight of its radical autonomy. It is a weight that proves too heavy to bear. Ultimately, we can wind up in narcissistic nihilism, a sense of meaningless existence where relationships are stripped of dignity. About all that is left is utility—using others for our own profit or pleasure. The radical giving and receiving that constitutes relational communion languishes. As a consequence, relationships are diminished. Is it any wonder that so often relationships today are self-serving, leaving many feeling manipulated or abused?

Bringing It Home to Our Hearts

Remember Harry? He lived his life in the sadness of loneliness. His relational world, like his dilapidated house, suffered greatly. His meager relational connections were superficial at best because of his unattended wounds and the feeble strategies he used against his pain. His relational brokenness, which left him anxious and afraid, drained the life from his soul. Literally.

In some way, Harry’s story is everyone’s story. Everyone knows the pain of loneliness at some level. And we all have our strategies for numbing it like Harry did. But often our strategies prove insufficient. If we are to love and be loved well, we will have to come to terms with both our relational design and the state of alienation we find ourselves in. If we want to relate well to others, we must honor the relational design woven into the fabric of our souls as well as the deep tear we find in it. We aren’t simply frayed at the edges.

The good news is that God is at work to help us experience what we deeply desire. Soulful relationships ultimately rest on the fact that God, in Christ, has come to reclaim our relational life. Communion with God is the “narrow way” Jesus exemplified and made possible for us. The trinitarian God who lives in the eternal relationship of love is the only God who is able to reweave the fabric of the human soul. Our relational God heals our wounds, not simply by decree but by inviting us into a participatory life of communion with him.

Our Hope for You

The goal of The Relational Soul is to help all of us engage in relationships in more life-giving ways, to foster a journey that moves our souls from relational disconnection and loneliness to connection and communion. To that end we will investigate the impact of early relationships (both healthy and unhealthy), the attachment patterns they fostered and how the resulting learned level of intimacy plays out in relationships as adults. We will look at the challenges we all face and offer practical ways of changing how we relate.

We have coauthored this book in part because we are seeking to live what we write—that life is done best in community (even writing a book). We have very different stories that have helped us think through relational realities from different perspectives. My (Rich) dad was orphaned when he was less than a year old and was on his own at age fourteen. He married a woman from an immigrant family at a young age. They had five kids and worked hard to provide for us. They took us to church regularly but found it difficult to engage in deep relational conversation or connection with each other or with me. We lived more functionally than relationally. Even so, when my mother died when I was twenty-four it rocked my world. And consequent years as a pastor as well as some deep relational heartaches forced me to think deeply about what it takes to relate well.

My (Jim) parents served in churches and on the mission field as far back as I can remember. I had many opportunities to learn and grow in my faith. I followed in my dad’s footsteps and entered full-time pastoral ministry after Bible college and seminary. From all appearances I had far more advantages than Rich did. But that simply made my relational challenges more difficult to see and acknowledge. In my late forties my mom’s death touched me so deeply that I could no longer hide from my pain. The wheels came off my relational wagon.

So both of us have our baggage. We are wounded writers. It is our conviction that no one enters life ready-made for communion with God or others. Certainly neither of us did. Much of what we have learned has come by way of much relational pain. But we have tried to be honest with ourselves and with you because we are convinced that living from a deeply relational perspective (modality) is what all of us must do if we are to thrive in life. We share what we have learned from a posture of humility and gratitude.

What we have discovered in ourselves, in Scripture and in working with many people through the years is that the foundation for relational connection and communion is the capacity to trust appropriately and well. Trust enables us to be present to God and others with fewer defenses. Trust fosters the openness, attentiveness, curiosity, acceptance and forgiveness needed for healthy relationships.

A lack of trust leads to alienation. That’s what happened to Adam and Eve. At the root of their disobedience was mistrust in the goodness of God. So if we are going to relate well to God and others, we need to get to the bottom of our mistrust and find out how we can change. We cannot love well or be loved well without trust. And so you will find a lot about trust in these pages.

One last word before we move forward. Healthy, rewarding relationships are the result of both grace and grit. There are things we must do to foster “true self” living (that is, the giving and receiving posture of a trusting soul that is needed for connection and communion with others). There are things we must do to relinquish “false self” living (the taking and defending posture of a mistrusting soul who starves and sabotages relationships). The questions at the end of each chapter will help you (and your small groups) apply the stories and principles to your relational soul.

But ultimately, relational connection is the gracious gift of the triune God. Deep connection is possible because God is for us. In eternity past the Father determined to draw us into loving communion by placing us in his Son through the Spirit. The relational reality in which we participate with God changes our identity, our capacity to trust and our relationships.

So we welcome you into this journey. The Relational Soul is both a map and a compass by which we can live in our receptive true-self reality rather than our reactive false-self reality. If you long for something more with God and others, we invite you to join us on this journey. It starts not by kicking down doors but by opening the door of our souls to the One who is always knocking. When we accept his invitation, we discover our life is lived in the very life of the triune God. Conscious participation in the love of the Father, Son and Spirit makes all the difference in our connection with others.

All of us need help in our relational journey. We trust that this book will prove helpful to you. We also encourage you to connect with CrossPoint ministries. More information about what we have to offer can be found at the back of the book.

For Reflection and Discussion

Can you identify in any way with Harry? If so, how?What is the significance for you of the fact that God is a relational God?In what way does gender contribute to soulful relationships?What are some of the practical implications of the fact that the Spirit of God is in and empowering every relationship?How have you masked your relational wounds and feelings of loneliness?If you were to identify what you long for relationally, what would you say?In what relationships would you like to cultivate a greater experience of closeness?

2

Attachment

Learning to Relate Starts Early in Life

Chad and Elaine had been married for eighteen years. Even though they had a lot going for them, they felt they had reached a plateau. Elaine felt their relationship was stale because they weren’t spending enough time together. Chad agreed that he and Elaine weren’t close, but he didn’t know what they could do about it. Busy with two teenagers and a “surprise” who was beginning kindergarten, their days were full. Chad was an executive in a national firm, and Elaine’s work kept her away from home many nights.

Elaine summarized things this way: “After eighteen years I thought we would be closer and in a different place emotionally. But we just have a routine with our kids and friends. We are stuck.” Chad’s take was that Elaine was never satisfied, always wanted something more and complained too much. Yes, he wanted to be closer, but this was about as good as things could be in light of their demanding jobs, the care of their kids and their involvement in their church and community.

Their emotional frustration led to a typical relational pattern. Elaine would reach a threshold and express the frustration of her loneliness to Chad. He would nod, say something about how he wanted more but that everyone was busy. Then he would withdraw. Eighteen years of this relational dance had turned Elaine’s frustration into anger and resentment. “For years I’ve reached out to him. He listens, but nothing changes. He does things for everyone else but doesn’t really reach out to me. I can’t live like this any more.” She wanted out. Chad was sad. “I try to connect more with her but don’t know how. I think she’s too idealistic. I love her, but she wants more than I can give.”

The Early and Enduring Connection Center

Chad and Elaine loved God, their kids and each other as best they knew how. They were serving in their church. Neither was emotionally involved with someone outside the marriage. But for both something big was missing. It was the ability to connect deeply at an emotional level in a sustained way. The trouble was that neither knew how to change. Both sensed that their full schedule wasn’t the real reason for their distance. Something deep inside seemed to keep them from what they longed for with each other. Elaine would pursue Chad out of desperation. Chad would try to respond positively but then would emotionally withdraw even when he really didn’t want to do so.

What was happening? As you might guess, their early memories of life help provide the answer. Elaine’s parents were good people but inconsistent in their care. Sometimes they made her feel special and other times they were very much emotionally unavailable. She had always been a good girl and tried to do whatever she could to keep the affection that seemed to come and go. Chad’s parents seemed distant to him. Because of their divorce when he was very young, they were preoccupied with their own lives. He had learned to make it on his own without their emotional involvement in his life.

Learning to relate starts at least as early as the day we are born (and probably in the womb). Our way of entering into and maintaining all our relationships (not just marriage) is one of the earliest psychological structures formed in us. We come into the world neurologically wired to make connections, to attach to others. When our early connections are healthy, we will find it easier to connect well as adults. To the extent our emotional attachment with our primary caregivers is lacking while we are children, we will find our relational capacity limited as adults.

It is virtually impossible to overstate the significance of our learned relational attachment system in the early years and its profound influence on our relational experience as adults. The quality and character of the programming we received early in life establishes a pattern of attachment that controls our relationships later in life. This was the lesson Chad and Elaine began to learn.