The Struggle for Initimacy

HBO is rerunning its series “Tell Me You Love Me.”

The premise of the show is simple. It follows four couples as they struggle with intimacy.

“Struggling with intimacy” is redundant because intimacy is always a struggle. It’s not necessarily hard to get close to another human being, but to stay close requires constantly being faced with things we don’t like that we see in the other person. Whether and how we can honestly come to terms with these things is the basis for intimacy.

The process of establishing or deepening intimacy is often not pretty. But it is the realest thing we go through in our lives. This is why the 20th century theologian Paul Tillich used intimacy as one of two ways of understanding God. (The other was ultimacy.)

In movies and TV shows, sex is used as an easy surrogate for intimacy. But it is unusual to find a story that focuses on the reality of long-term intimacy.

“Tell Me You Love Me” attempts to put the struggle for intimacy on the screen. In includes sex--some of it is graphic, even for HBO. It's not for the squeamish. But its depiction is part of the story. We begin to see into each relationship, and how each person tries to deeply trust another.

Because the subject matter is so difficult, watching can sometimes be an uncomfortable experience. It has been for me.

After a couple of episodes, though, I find it very rewarding indeed. And I find that I care about the characters, as unbelievably aggravating as some of them are.

The Vitality of Confession

A faithful reader passed along to me a story from the August 31, 2007 “Los Angeles Times” about Christian confession. As it has declined in the Catholic church, it has grown online via sites sponsored by Protestant mega-churches.

For a long time, confession has had a terrible reputation. Why would anyone want to admit something bad they had done? And who in their right mind would do it among other people?

While it has always been a central part of liturgy in mainline churches, many congregations had drifted away from it. The thought was that it made people feel bad, and people wouldn’t come to church if it made them feel bad.

At first look, it seems good that confession has come back in the mostly non-denominational mega-churches. But there is a rub. Actually, there are two rubs.

Nothing is wrong with inviting people to confess anonymously online. It can help them unburden themselves. For some, it may even begin the process of getting needed help. But it is an individual act, done outside of any community the confessor may be part of.

The second rub is that worship in mega-churches is almost always about feeling good and does not include a time for community confession. It’s too much of a downer and it scares people away.

The result of all this is that confession, online or otherwise, becomes just a marketing gimmick that church leaders hope will draw certain people into the community.

One doesn’t confess in a vacuum, just as one doesn’t worship in a vacuum. All of us live our lives not just in a relationship with ourselves, and the same is true for our spiritual lives. We are in this world with other people, and our lives are connected to them.

Nothing is wrong with private, personal prayer, meditation and reflection. In fact, it is a good thing. But it is not the beginning and end of our spiritual lives.

Sometimes I hear people talk as if their relationship with a vague, supernatural god means more than their relationship with the people around them. But I don’t think we can have any kind of real relationship with God outside of our relationship to our loved ones and our community.

That’s why, for confession to be meaningful, it must be done in the context of a community. And it really should always be part of weekly worship. Not as in telling the person next to you a bad thing you have done, but as in saying together that, individually and as a community, we have messed up.

And that we need each other’s help to do better.

Is "Multitasking" Spiritually Healthy?

I regularly see the current generation referred to as “different.” One way it is “different,” so it goes, it that it is a “multi-tasking” generation.

I have one word for this timorously trenchant cultural analysis. Bunk.

It is true that younger people are doing many things at once. This is obvious if you’ve watched anyone under 30 use a computer or a cell phone, or play a video game. Many of their brains have been trained from an early age to almost-instinctively use technology to search or explore.

But are they better able to handle multi-tasking than their parents or grandparents? Have they made a significant evolutionary step and become so advanced that they can talk on the phone, listen to music, check their e-mail, and drink Red Bull while driving a 7000-pound Excursion?

Have their brains become so multi-taskingly wired that they can process, absorb and analyze simultaneous streams of data from five or six different sources? No.

From an evolutionary standpoint, human beings have changed not one whit from the days before cars and TV. It is true that we are healthier and living longer. But our essential physiological and neurological makeup is unchanged.

It was a mere 110 years ago that our grandparents or great-grandparents or great-great grandparents were walking or relying on horses for transportation. To get information they relied on neighbors, bought a newspaper, or went to hear a speech in the evening. For entertainment they chatted, played games, read books, went visiting, or occasionally went out.

Multi-tasking has consequences beyond any real or imagined increase in productivity, and certainly beyond any notion that you are living a “full” life.

Most people will eventually discover that multi-tasking not only does not indicate a “full” life, but rather an empty one. The fullness of life is found in going deep and savoring, not in rapidly skimming everything everywhere.

Church Leadership and Management

The statement about management that sticks with me more than any other came from the titan of all management experts, Peter Drucker. It goes something like this:

“Management consists mostly of finding creative ways to make it more difficult for people to do their jobs.”

This came to mind as I thought about the current focus of the California-Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Just like many church bodies across the U.S., our conference has fretted for years about loss of membership. And that fretting hit a fever pitch in the last year as the rate of membership loss accelerated.

In all the study and research about what to do to reverse this decline, the one need that came up much more often than any other was a need for leadership training--for ministers, staff and lay people.

It’s terrific that the conference has come to consensus on this. It’s terrific when the conference comes to consensus on anything.

I’m a little concerned that a possible consequence of the leadership focus will be to impose standardized “tactics” or plans for success. While it is possible for such tactics and plans to make a difference, any change will not stick unless there is fundamental, basic change in our openness to, and understanding and expectation of, success.

The standard, repeating pattern in churches and other organizations is for hope to be placed in some new technique (or, worse, some new buzzword). Some church leaders become very excited and, as a result, some other church members get excited.

But the excitement gradually dissipates as it becomes clear that nothing is really changing. And so all the videos and Powerpoints and leader’s guides are filed away and forgotten.

The reason that nothing changes is because nothing has changed. The change needs to be at the beginning of the process, not a result at the end. And the change needs to be at the most-basic and fundamental level.

One suggested change: to fully appreciate and lavish attention and resources on the places where the church is already growing (translated “leading”).

For example, if a church has an exciting and well-attended youth program, provide significant additional resources and support (money and/or people) to encourage the growth to continue. If a church has a successful hands-on mission program, send resources to help it continue to grow and expand.

The only way the church will grow is when we can accept, embrace and support how it is already growing.

The dirty little secret is that many churches simply want to stay small. They don’t put it that way, of course. Every church wants some (not too many) new "younger" people.

It is understandable and not necessarily a bad thing that communities want to retain their essential friendly, intimate character.

But it is unfortunate if also we have become unable to accept, celebrate, nurture and support authentic and real growth, wherever it may be happening in our communities.