Relationships

Thursday 1/5/2012 5:52 AM

I’m sure it is because I am getting older but it seems to me that relationships today are much different than they were a generation ago.  In our modern age of instant communication it seems we are more distracted, disconnected and disjointed than ever when it comes to meaningful relationships.  A face-to-face conversation is interrupted by calls or text messages from friends and family, updates to my smartphone alerting me of the latest sports score or shopping deal or Googling a topic to prove the veracity of a statement I made in my conversation.  Conversations about meaningful topics are often avoided because it seems that civil discourse can no longer occur between two people with differing views without it degenerating into a shouting match or name-calling.  These forces, acting within our society, result in relationships that are shallow and transitory.  There is little or no commitment to the other person and one party will bail out of a relationship at the first sign of any kind of conflict.  In 1 Peter 3, Peter suggests that we treat each other with gentleness and respect, something that seems absent in our modern, Western world.

In his book Mutual Ministry, James Fenhagen stresses the importance of meaningful relationships.  He writes, “… who I am and who I will become is tied up with my capacity to live with integrity and compassion in relation to the human family of which I am a part.  It is a sense that who I am is intimately connected with my capacity for relationships of depth, which, at the deepest level, I both yearn for and resist.”  From my perspective it seems that integrity, compassion and relationships of depth are waning in modern society.  Fenhagen would argue that this hinders people from reaching their full potential.  I would agree.