The Essence of Humanity

I’ve noticed that when I speak, I consistently integrate three things:  God, relationships, and mental health. To me, the connections between these are so clear, that they blend into each other, they reinforce each other, they are all at once the essence of our humanity.  I suppose building things would probably also be included in the “essence of our humanity” idea, but I don’t know anything about that, so…I think the proper procedure for handling something we don’t know anything about is to completely ignore it.  Back to my original triad:  God, relationships, mental health.

Let’s start with God. He longs for relationship with us. The bible is many stories telling us the bigger story of how God is working to be reunited with us once again. He tells us the whole point is to love Him and love others, and as it turns out loving others is the way to love God. (John 15 lays out this cosmic circular logic.)  

Which brings us to relationships. Loving others seems so straightforward on the surface, but once we spend more than an afternoon with someone we’re faced with differences that make loving a little less palatable. So when we’re talking about trying to stay married for a lifetime… or loving our family members who may have hurt us along the way… or loving friends who have some fatal flaw that drives us crazy… or loving a neighbor who is vocal about their, well, let’s just say they are very vocal… – love gets real messy.  And by messy I mean painful. So then we may pull back from relationships in a variety of ways.

Which brings us to mental health. My quick explanation for what entails mental health is the ability to think, feel, act and relate all while staying attached to reality. When we’re mentally healthy we can make sense of things in a way that’s helpful; we can feel positive and negative emotions; we can have close, stable relationships despite what life delivers. In short, mental health is the ability to handle the hard in life. But the only real way to face pain (and therefore be mentally healthy) is to be connected to others. As the saying goes, “suffering is inevitable, suffering alone is unbearable.” There is no way to face life in our broken world without connection.  

Which brings us back to relationships. In the mental health field, we focus a lot on improving social networks. The problem is that (as strongly implied above) people are messy, flawed, and well – mortal.  We can’t always count on relationships to provide the connection that we need.  (And in those few moments of honesty we can admit that we are broken as well.) The way we relate is not always conducive to longstanding, solid connection. Which brings us back to God. We absolutely need God. He is our solid, stable connection. He knows us fully and remains present and loving. God is our true connection.  And then He says to love Him back by loving others. Which brings us back to relationships…. 

Do you see what I mean? This triad of our humanity overlaps and clarifies and enhances life as long as we stay in the process. I get excited when I think of things in this way.  This blog will address many different topics, but you will likely find these elements woven into all of them. And if I learn something about building things, I will include it as often as possible.