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Word on the Web.
26 April 2008
Word on the Web
Meditations for Life's Journey - Relationships
From the Wise Traveller Series
Today's Word on the Web follows a different format to our normal pattern and uses material from the "Wise Traveller" series of meditations for life's journey on relationships. The material is copyright Scripture Union and used by permission.
Wise Traveller
Liberator
When our loneliness drives us away from ourselves into the arms of our companions in life, we are, in fact, driving ourselves into excruciating relationships, tiring friendships and suffocating embraces.
To wait for moments or places where no pain exists, no separation is felt and all human restlessness has turned into inner peace is waiting for a dreamworld. No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness. And by burdening others with these divine expectations of which we ourselves are often only partially aware, we might evoke instead feelings of inadequacy and weakness.
Friendship and love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other. They ask for gentle fearless space in which we can move to and from each other...Intimate relationship between people not only asks for mutual openness but also for mutual respectful protection of each other's uniqueness.
Henri Nouwen (1932-1996)
There is something wonderful about the freedom to be who you were made to be. Can you help someone realise that for themselves? Can someone help you? Almost everything we communicate consciously or unconsciously is an attempt to influence others. And we are conformists; more often than not our identities are shaped by what others project onto us. What a responsibility we have and what power to encourage growth or suppress freedom.
What are the lines of influence between you and other people in your life today? How shaped are you by childhood influences or by the media? Some lines strengthen community and relationship; they encourage and sustain and support. Others pull, control and maintain sameness.
Consider how you influence others. Visualise the people you have most influence over. Do you project your expectations onto them, so that you're surprised when they do something 'out of character'?
Where are you supportive and encouraging to others? How might you be preventing people from growing and changing? Which lines are you willing to let go of in order to release others?
Take into account your capacity to project your expectations onto people. How might you need to find a new dynamic in the way you behave towards people closest to you - one in which you help them to become more free, loving, confident and whole?
How can you treat them as it they have already realised their potential? How can you invite them to see their potential for growth? How can you encourage them in the positivity of breaking with unfruitful ways of living? How can you help them see their potential and capacity to love and be loved? How can you maintain this positive image when their behaviour inclines you to feel otherwise?
Sustaining a freeing stance towards others can be enormously helped by placing yourself in the company of those who are willing to encourage you to walk in the fullest of freedoms.
Bruce Stanley
For more information on Wise Traveller see Wise Traveller - Meditations for Life's Journey
This material is copyright Sripture Union 2007
26 April 2008
Word on the Web
Meditations for Life's Journey - Relationships
From the Wise Traveller Series
Today's Word on the Web follows a different format to our normal pattern and uses material from the "Wise Traveller" series of meditations for life's journey on relationships. The material is copyright Scripture Union and used by permission.
Wise Traveller
Liberator
When our loneliness drives us away from ourselves into the arms of our companions in life, we are, in fact, driving ourselves into excruciating relationships, tiring friendships and suffocating embraces.
To wait for moments or places where no pain exists, no separation is felt and all human restlessness has turned into inner peace is waiting for a dreamworld. No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness. And by burdening others with these divine expectations of which we ourselves are often only partially aware, we might evoke instead feelings of inadequacy and weakness.
Friendship and love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other. They ask for gentle fearless space in which we can move to and from each other...Intimate relationship between people not only asks for mutual openness but also for mutual respectful protection of each other's uniqueness.
Henri Nouwen (1932-1996)
There is something wonderful about the freedom to be who you were made to be. Can you help someone realise that for themselves? Can someone help you? Almost everything we communicate consciously or unconsciously is an attempt to influence others. And we are conformists; more often than not our identities are shaped by what others project onto us. What a responsibility we have and what power to encourage growth or suppress freedom.
What are the lines of influence between you and other people in your life today? How shaped are you by childhood influences or by the media? Some lines strengthen community and relationship; they encourage and sustain and support. Others pull, control and maintain sameness.
Consider how you influence others. Visualise the people you have most influence over. Do you project your expectations onto them, so that you're surprised when they do something 'out of character'?
Where are you supportive and encouraging to others? How might you be preventing people from growing and changing? Which lines are you willing to let go of in order to release others?
Take into account your capacity to project your expectations onto people. How might you need to find a new dynamic in the way you behave towards people closest to you - one in which you help them to become more free, loving, confident and whole?
How can you treat them as it they have already realised their potential? How can you invite them to see their potential for growth? How can you encourage them in the positivity of breaking with unfruitful ways of living? How can you help them see their potential and capacity to love and be loved? How can you maintain this positive image when their behaviour inclines you to feel otherwise?
Sustaining a freeing stance towards others can be enormously helped by placing yourself in the company of those who are willing to encourage you to walk in the fullest of freedoms.
Bruce Stanley
For more information on Wise Traveller see Wise Traveller - Meditations for Life's Journey
This material is copyright Sripture Union 2007
