Dear Friends,
One of my vacation pleasures (this can happen when I am snowed in as well) is to enjoy a good novel or an insightful book. I save my reading of challenging theology for work days when I expect my mind to get tired, not for times when I am on vacation where my mind likes to take its’ ease. Wonderfully, I made it through four novels while I was on vacation. Some of them were better than others but each of them invited me to explore in depth the lives of the main characters.
One nonfiction book I read concerned improving human relationships. As the Church has long taught, we are made in God’s own image. This means that, like God, we are made for relationships, relationships with God and relationships with others. David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times and a well-known American writer. His new book How to Know a Person offers a perspective on human connection that’s written for our world’s troubled times.
In the past decades, relationships have become difficult. Mean-spirited political division is coupled by declining social skills and loneliness. At the same time, we live in a culture that tells us we have to compete with each other. Many feel ongoing anxiety. The ever-present social media makes it feel like we are always being judged.
David Brooks shows how none of this helps us thrive. He brings us back to the recognition of the basic human needs: “People are social animals. People need recognition from others if they are to thrive. People long for someone to look into their eyes with loving acceptance…What matters most is not the strength of individual’s willpower, but how skillful she is in her social interactions.”
Obviously, you can’t learn relationship skills from a book. You need to practice them. However, what Brooks recommends I see many of you already practicing here at Cabrini. The subtitle of Brooks’ book reads “The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.” That is exactly what good disciples of Jesus do in their encounters with others. They practice that art.
Brooks says, Life has a way of tenderizing you. Becoming a father was an emotional revolution, of course. Later, I absorbed my share of the normal blows that any adult suffers — broken relationships, personal failures, the vulnerability that comes with getting older. The ensuing sense of my own frailty was good for me, introducing me to deeper, repressed parts of myself. I learned that living in a detached way is a withdrawal from life, an estrangement not just from other people but also from yourself.
I’m not an exceptional person, but I am a grower. I do have the ability to look at my shortcomings and then try to prod myself into becoming a more fully developed person.
I have learned something profound along the way. Being openhearted is a prerequisite for being a full, kind and wise human being. But it is not enough. People need social skills. The real process of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete actions well: being curious about other people; disagreeing without poisoning relationships; revealing vulnerability at an appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.
People want to connect. Above almost any other need, human beings long to have another person look into their faces with love and acceptance. The issue is that we lack practical knowledge about how to give one another the attention we crave. Some days it seems like we have intentionally built a society that gives people little guidance on how to perform the most important activities of life.
The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.” In other words, the cruelest punishment you can inflict upon another person is to treat them as if they don’t matter – or don’t exist. On the flipside, one of the greatest gifts you can give to others is seeing and understanding them. It can be life-altering to hear someone see and praise something within you that you may not even be aware of yourself. Or for someone to understand exactly what you need at exactly the right moment and give it to you with warmth and affection.
For those of you who might be wondering how to do it better, I would recommend a quick read of Brook’s new book. Not a hard read. Something you can even do on vacation.
Peace,
Fr. Damian