Intentional Relationships

Two events today:

• Diane Rehm interviewed David Brooks about his new book, The Social Animal, in which he argues that our relationships are more important to us than we normally acknowledge and he stresses that our emotional connections are vital to our wellbeing. One of the things he noted was that decision-making face to face works better—more effective decisions are made in less time—than when the process is done online or by teleconference.
• An email exchange between members of my local congregation devolved into bitterness and anger when they each felt their concerns were not understood and appreciated by the other, even though they are working together on a project important to them both. The exchange finally evoked a truce called by our pastor. This is in the context of a congregation that has been quite intentional about how we build relationships and address and resolve conflict.

These events resonate with me because I have been giving quite a bit of thought recently about being intentional about nurturing a community in which the quality of the relationships we construct is an active object of consideration. We don’t normally look at our relationships unless they are in trouble. Thus we are not comfortable looking at them at all. Thus they grow almost by accident. “Almost” because we are secretly or even unconsciously very committed to our relationships. We need them to be as robust as possible.

So what would it be like to gather folks who are aware of their need for robust relationships into a community that has as a central purpose the development of relationships which have greater depth and durability?
I have some ideas about what such a community might look like. If you are interested, follow along. I will be blogging about my thoughts here over the next few weeks.