This article is meant to be on relationships and behaviour. It is though valid to present what someone else may or may not agree with as that is a necessary part of our ability to come to workable conclusions, even if they need to be modified or changed.
When people present their views, it should be without hostility, but the usual behaviour is to say I am right, and you are clearly wrong. This approach divides so absolutely that it is harder to engage in useful conversation. It has the effect of heightening bias and perception of being right, even if these positions are partially right or flawed. There has to be a better way to engage in differences of viewpoints, and behaviours.
Some behaviours though are untenable as they are abnormal and we cannot work with them. The challenge is to remain as calm and objective as possible, as even our best intentions can be based on past bias.
For instance, a truck parks in the driveway to an apartment block taking up all the space. No one can get in or out. It is obvious the person is selfish and should have parked their truck to the side, not in the bulk of the driveway. Our response to this is quite automatic and angry. However, what if the truck is so big that there is no other option. In that case we have to exercise patience. We were therefor totally wrong. Now, if the truck was not so huge, that is a different matter. Behaviours are built into us, so it is not our normal practice to review them, even though I believe we should.
If we don’t like behavioural subject matter we deal with, there is no progress in any direction. Our views can either support others or pull them down.
For instance, a drug addicted person may have degradation of morals and functional responses to others. At some point that may be detrimental to any ongoing relationship with others, unless those relationships are perverse. So we are not proposing imbalance, but reality.
Everyone on the planet has diverse behaviour towards relationships and friendships. You are not the same as someone else, but obviously share certain characteristics. We can enjoy differences, but perhaps not so when there is too much dysfunction or inability to work with the differences. When forced to, perhaps due to crisis or confusion, we examine who a person is and if it is possible to continue with them. Our default position should be to love others, but it is too easy to be misused or invalidated. A person without reasonable empathy may never offer anything back in a relationship, so why continue with this? We beleive in mercy and sacrifice, but this is dangerous at some point. We tend to think of others in terms of the good emotions and experiences we had, but this is not realistic if the person is actually, say, dominant and violent. It requires effort to trust what we know is true about another. As we do not behave the way an abusive person does, we cannot understand this very well, not their behaviour or tactics, even though they do work that way. If we only trust our past good memories, we have lost decent protection and empowerment. This is a struggle of course.
I perceive how I engage a friendship, which can be different to how the other person engages with me, even if my assumptions share some commonality. How can we ever be all thinking the same things. It does not work that way. Basing relationship on forcing each other to think the same still cannot work anyway. It is impossible. Not recognising differences can be hurtful. Simply saying you disagree but recognise a difference can also be cold-hearted.
As a difficult example, say a person grows up as a child to adulthood in a cult environment. They would deal with the world and the functions we do day to day with definite differences to someone else. What we think as “normal” may continually not work with such a person. Is the relationship going to be built on assumptions that never resolve, disappointments with interactions that don’t work? Some people will actually sacrifice their rights and freedoms, which may not be noble at all. So where is it noble, and where is it bondage? These are the tough questions.
If we do not see the differences with others, we assume at first the person is like us, only to find out eventually that certain ways of interacting with the person just do not work, as they use a different set of mechanics that were impacted from obvious backgrounds – e.g. narcissism, a cult, drug addiction and so forth. But, there is no point in people trying to have the same views and behaviours as each other.
I know that I love people who I cannot have relationship with. All I can do is pray for them, not with self-righteousness, but because the person genuinely needs true help for the safety and inner being. This is different to someone who misjudges and is condescending in their prayers and the way they talk to you. Over time we can pick out these things more clearly or obviously, rather than prior training from others or our self in what we imagine is obvious. There is no easy way to develop this awareness, but it can only commence from certain places and not assert itself unless there is reasonable ground to do so and reasonable attitude.
If we try to build friendships or deeper relationships only on terms of agreements, it cannot work. This is self-delusion. We can however be desirous and willing to develop relationships as far as we can go, and that is a healthier approach. It is without agendas or motivations, but rather love of others and the process of how that pans out as best we can go with it. And in that mix, there will be priorities given to a few number of people, and more ability to provide help or direction for those outside our smaller circle of relationships. What is the point of seeing a member of the pubic in distress over some situation that should be entirely within our ability to help, if we cannot help. This points to the fact, something has gone wrong in our development, hence an indicator that we may choose to change or remain the same – awareness and choice. Positive choice then opens up new awareness and capability within our capacity.
Perhaps dysfunctional is a propensity for people to put others down if they do not match expectations. One thing we perceive as wrong means we were looking for a chance to pounce, that we are right. The other person is discounted, invalidated. If we flip this attitude, and then find bad things are constantly happening, we may need to be forced to scrutinise who the person is. Sometimes though we know very quickly if something is really “off” with the other person. This sense of not liking the person is one that grates against our spirit and observation. We may notice at some future point why we did not internally like the person. For example, a neighbour seems friendly and nice, but something in you really does not like them. Other friends say you are probably wrong, yet, at some future point you observe your neighbour is inviting hookers into their home each week. To some this is acceptable, but if your spirit is sensitive, it is fully justifiable in matching to the strong dislike you felt. We cannot ignore everything. We have to see if we are simply reacting to what we do not like from a weak basis, or if it is real. C.S. Lewis had to deal with the proposition once, of that which we find repulsive. The huge question is if this response is valid. This is very challenging, as mind games, confusion, or logistics of thinking are not enough to go by when dealing with this particular topic of repulsion. We won’t go into it here, but it indicates complexities and C.S. Lewis did bump into it.
So, why be involved with such a person just so we can prove the point after we are harmed? We have a weakness around wanting to know what we don’t need to know. And I am sure others take advantage of that. It does mean however that I can tell what is going on with a number of people very readily, but there are still many behaviours I do not know or understand.
This is where I have failed in the past, not listening to what someone else knew because I did not see it. Again, a tough one. I know of highly emotional situations that no longer impact me, but others are being wracked to pieces. It is not an issue to me in that I have been there and am no longer caught up on those terrible things. It does not mean I do not care, but in certain things we have done the hard yards. We have to come out of those hard yards.
A number of folks may linger and not find a sufficient change to deal with highly damaging situations. This is deeply sad, because we know what it does. The Apostle Paul reminded people that grief kills people, but our grief as Christians is not to be stupid or simplistic. We do recognise what is real, but we have a hope to help pull us through and away from intensity of damage. If we do not strive for this, to get the changes we need, grief is unresolved. Even biologically this causes great damage.
Who is going to say they care or do not care if you become ill or die from these things? We have to develop a stronger response to Jesus to go somewhere we have not gone before. It may not mean satisfaction. It may not mean resolve. It may just mean recognition of reality and an inner journey that at least takes us away from death and illness, meaning we believe in life, the right to life, and the right to continue in our lives to help others. There are some issues we cannot resolve, as surely as there are some people who will not recognise the Cross of Jesus Christ or God’s sovereignty. Some things we reasonably state that although God is God and we do not have his mind, we do have the Spirit of Christ, and there are such things that He will not tolerate.
People may try to dissect the human being into parts and apply various categorisations, or ignorantly attempt to empirically define who God is, or what lightning bolts He will deploy. We can’t effectively work this way. If there is no resolve on an issue, it means there is not intended to be resolve as we have the Spirit of Truth as our inner companion and witness as the priority. While judgement and justification can be very rewarding, we also know that various situations can only be based on faith, not some chemical reaction of Dopamine, Serotonin or Cortisol. We then start to open our eyes to learn more about what is going on around us.
We may face terrible situations that have no miraculous revelations, but nonetheless which have a process we must go through. Of course, we can choose not to. Where there is sin, there is judgement and impact. We fight this not only for ourselves, but it is the responsibility for others to engage. While we are different, there are spiritual areas which will speak to us in some way that I don’t think we should be ignoring.
Without spiritual content, as the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians, people only work by the flesh – no awareness of Spirit, and hence the views and behaviours people adopt and expect. Under that worldly regime there are very obtuse outcomes. There is a balance we are meant to experience between body, soul and mind, and spirit. If we do not know any better, we function by what we have. And so, we get into situations where we develop awareness or we simply remain confused. We either find better ways to work with relationships, or at worst, let someone bludgeon us if they never change. People do not have the right to do that. The unexpected will happen in relationships. To assume it should be otherwise will not really help. If we develop skills, we can better manage these dynamics. If we never do, we won’t even know much about how to pray on these situations. And further, are the problems with the other person, or our very own self? Blindness goes both ways. In all this, Jesus is still safe. He is the stable one who wants to help us develop in a healthy way.
