The Corruption of Human Intimacy

What I'm about to write is not a fully formed set of thoughts, but ones offered in hopes of the beginnng of a conversation about something deep and personal about leadership and the church.

We live awash in sexual images.  We read books, magazine articles, and blog postings about people and their personal lives. Software engineers and game developers are creating online sites of virtual communities where people can connect. Coffee shops are spring up in cities and small towns as third places where people can find other people.  Churches shift from high church formality to pop culture informality as a way to create community.  All of this is for what purpose?

For thirty years, the problem of relationships has been an ever-present question for me.  So, when I read these posts by  Dawn Eden and Jamie Arpin-Ricci (HT:Bill Kinnon), I was impressed by their transparency and honesty.  What Dawn and Jamie's stories show are how our sexual lives have become the way we describe and define ourselves.

As I've listened, observed, reflected and discerned the place of human relationships in the grand economy of God's creation, I've come to realize that all that has been created is the stage for our relationship with God our creator and redeemer.  I don't mean this in some giddy Jesus is by best friend sort of way. No, I think of it quite the opposite.

Our relationship with Christ, and consequently our relationship with other people is determined by our ability to be intimate in the relationship.  Now, I use the word intimate, and automatically, we think sexual intimacy.  That is only one part of the realm of intimacy, and not primarily my interest here.

Let me approach this question from a different angle.  Most of my work is centered in solving problems.  I have seen just about everything.  Nothing surprises me. At the heart of so many of the problems in which I deal are problems with relationships, and with those there is a corruption of the ability for people to be honest, open, forth-coming, candid, humble, vulnerable and open. There is a real problem with the ability of people to trust other people and consequently for them to be trust-worthy.

Theologically we speak of this as sin, but we treat sin too symbolically as the anti-spirit or just a label to describe why things are broken.  It is the power that corrupts goodness, including the goodness that exists in relationships.

At the heart of sin is the corruption of intimacy. Intimacy is the ability to be perfectly and completely vulnerable, open and trusting of someone.  It is like putting our lives into their hands and trusting them with it.

In reading Dawn's post, I could hear her desire to be intimate, to be perfectly someone else's so that peace and security, love,  would be real. This is what love and intimacy gives to us. It is what our relationship with God should be, but too often is not.  It is why so many of our relationships with people are not fulfilling or worse destructive.

I often say that what people look for in their lives is for things that are Personally Meaningful and Socially Fulfilling. At the heart of this desire is that of intimacy. Something that is personally meaningful is something that touches who we are and what we believe.  The more deeply it touches us, the greater intimacy we have with that idea or value. For something to be socially fulfilling, it must connect us to people in someway that transcends the moment. We find our values affirmed in relationship with another person.

I've often felt that the sharing of a meal verges on the sacramental as it is a time of communion.  It is not the same as a cocktail party or business meeting. It potentially provides an opportunity for intimacy to be developed. It also one reason why I'm not fond of fast food joints. They aren't personal or social, just a nutrition delivery system.  It is one of the reasons why the TV show Dinner for Five is so interesting to watch. Are they intimate? No. It's television. But it is more interesting that a typical talk show.  Why? Because they are sharing stories over a fine meal with wine and cigars.  It is personal and social.

To return to my point ... at the heart of the experience of sin is the loss of intimacy, but not the loss of the desire. The presence of that desire is a signal that God's goodness is still in us, still present in our world, and worth seeking after. It is a driving influence in our lives and all that we do.  It isn't just in our personal relationships. The desire for intimacy is in everything that we do. It is in the church, in our business, in our social activities, in the charitable activities that we take on; it is in our families both immediate and extended, in our relationships with friends, neighbors, co-workers, bosses, and employers. 

The corruption of intimacy that is at the heart of sin's impact upon creation lies behind the self-destructive tendencies of people. It is at the heart of the "pride that comes before a fall" that we see in people who continually do things that are clearly not in their best interest.  I've seen it this week first hand and second hand set the stage for the destruction of the career prospects of two people in separate situations.  It is what lies behind the self-justification that explains away problems as someone's else fault, and looks to others to fix those problems that are clearly within their own responsibility.

How is this a question of intimacy?  Whether it is with God or with another human being, the capacity to be intimate is the ability to see ourselves in a clear light, being able to see our goodness as well as those areas that have been corrupted by sin.  To be intimate is akin to being mature and wise. But it is not the same. 

One of the reasons I've wanted to write on this topic is that I see these same issues alive in organizations, and I include the church in that category.  We don't typically think of intimacy in the context of business.  It is really too personal a term, yet, when we lack the ability to be intimate, we lack the people skills that are needed for organizations to be successful.

For example, when I am able to have an intimate relationship, I able to be appropriately personal, and know how to distinguish decisions based on policy or objective criteria from those are clearly personal attacks. When we take something personal that was not intended to be so, we elevate the personal nature of it so that the perceived conflict takes on a life of its own. Here, we see the effect of the corruption of intimacy.  This is something that I have experienced first hand.  And the person in question if he were not in some personal conflict over a range of other issues in his life, would have understood that the decision I made was not a personal one, but one in the best interest of our group.

So, what does this mean for leaders.  First, it means we must think deeper about leadership than simply treating it as either administrative leadership or being a person of influence. 

Second, it means that with leadership comes the burden of dealing with the corruption of intimacy that is at the heart of both the relationships and the business practices of the organization. What do I mean by this?  It means that as leaders we are responsible for being an example of a person who can conduct his or her relationships with openness and honesty, being personal with people without injecting personal issues into decision making.  It means that we become persons who are able to act to redeem relationships and persons within the context of the organization.  To redeem someone is to act to help them to become more whole, more authentic, more intimate.  We can do this my own own relationship to them.

Third, it means that we are conscious of how we communicate with people. We learn that discipline has to function in a wider context of future potential. That to deal with the corruption that is in a person is to have a vision for them fulfilling their potential through the use of their God-given talent.  I believe that leaders are to be agents of this type of change or redemption.  We do so beginning with the redemption of the organization or church from its own corruption.  Then as leaders, we deal with the people individually.  In other words, we create an environment where intimacy can grow in individual and group relationships.

Lastly, our confusion and battles over sexual identity and orientation that contributes so much trauma in the life of the church is about the quest for intimacy.  When we are fully known, fully loved, fully capable of giving our love and it being received as love, then much of the question of our own personal identity gets resolved.  I really don't understand the sexual dimensions of this very well because I grew up in a different time and place. But I hear in the stories that people tell a desire for the intimacy that can only come from the God, whose transparent sacrifice of love provides us a starting point for growing our relationships, our organizations and our churches into being places where peoples' lives are redeemed from the pain and loneliness of the corruption of intimacy that is sin.

I want to conclude with a quote from the beginning of Thomas Merton's No Man Is An Island.  It describes for me what the activity of intimacy is like.

"A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy."

"There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves. In disinterested activity we best fulfill our own capacities to act and to be."

"Yet there can never be happiness in compulsion. It is not enough for love to be shared: it must be shared freely. That is to say it must be given, not merely taken. Unselfish love that is poured out upon a selfish object does not bring perfect happiness: not because love requires a return or a reward for loving, but because it rests in the happiness of the beloved. And if the one loved receives love selfishly, the lover is not satisfied. He sees that his love has failed to make the beloved happy. It has not awakened his capacity for unselfish love."

"Hence the paradox that unselfish love cannot rest perfectly except in a love that is perfectly reciprocated: because it knows that the only true peace is found in selfless love. Selfless love consents to be loved selflessly for the sake of the beloved. In so doing, it perfects itself."

"The gift of love is the gift of the power and the capacity to love, and, therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So, love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it is also received."

 From: No Man Is An Island, by Thomas Merton