Human Relationships

I'm sure that we could all agree that when relationships are at their best, they become the most nourishing and for filling things we have. The great existential philosopher, Martin Buber, once said that 'all real living is meeting'. This is to say that being in contact with another, whether it be the transcendent, a fellow human being or even nature can bring meaning and purpose to our lives. And subsequently stops the trend towards harmful introspection, which makes us miss all sorts of possibilities in the 'here and now'.

However , with every good thing, there has to be an opposite, or in short, a bad thing. So when one is talking of bad relationships, the only real motif one could use is the word toxic. And in any context, toxic means harmful and injurious to other people. Therefore, not only do toxic relationships drain one of energy,and make them constantly defensive and hyper vigilant, they become hurtful and damaging in the long term. To the point where the only lens a person can look at the world through is one of their own pain.

And for myself, as a Christian, one of the biggest underlying causes of toxic relationships can be found in the most insightful polemics about human nature (Genesis 3:16), or better known as the fall. Which for me highlights all our tendency's to think that we know best, and that our own rights need to be respected whatever the wider consequences. Now there are many forms of this behaviour, and it could be put on a continuum, which is to say that there are some extreme forms of selfishness that have greater consequences (the distribution of wealth). And then we could think of our daily lives, with even our best efforts to portray a positive projected image of ourselves are always underscored with issues of self interest. But even though the consequences of our self interest can be vastly different, it all comes from the same place, or our own falleness.

Now I'm sure this will be offensive to some people, particularly those from a humanistic standpoint, who would go as far to say that man is inherently good and we must learn to evolve as a human race. Or the wave of Postmodern pluralism which permeates more of our culture then we would like to admit, who claim that everything is a relativistic social construct, highlighting the need to rid ourselves of all 'oughts' and 'shoulds' ... With the result being a new and spacious place for human kind to live in without the constraints of overarching world views, rather aptly sang about in the John Lennon song 'imagine'. But as much as I like John Lennon, and alot of what our culture brings us today, denying the root of the problem achieves nothing. And points to the fact that our humanness needs to be redeemed by something beyond ourselves and all our ideologies, something which has been made possible by our Lord and Saviour (John 14:6), Jesus Christ.