Individuality in Relationship

"It is true that in relationship we join with others in a common life, but it is a misconception that in relationship we cease to be individuals. 

The common life has its own structure, which distinguishes it from the order of individual life, but that common life is authentic and vigorous, only when it is fashioned after the rhythms of individual life.

A relationship is a transpersonal reference point, a “We” with which a host of “I’s” can identify. For that “We” to be dynamic and useful, it must incorporate the values and customs of its constituents. There are aspects of the human condition that can be realized only in association with others, and relationships enable us to actualize those potentialities that cannot be pressed out in isolation. In short, individuals are individuated in relationship.

The constituent finds completion in association with the whole, but not in the sense that they find parts missing in themselves; rather, in association, unique opportunities to express features of individuality are uncovered. In this way, relationship is a vehicle of maturation, but it sufficiently serves this end only when its members are aware of the rhythms of their life, clearly communicate those needs, and these communiques establish the dynamics of the relationship. Thus, healthy relationships are inherently democratic." 

~ excerpt from my upcoming book "The Triumph of Principles"

The Triumph of Principles

"Spiritual principles are abstractions until they are professed in the details of daily living.

The person who fails to enter the arena, dispels of those details, rendering their moral pronouncements un-true⸺not false, but not yet made real. It is in the details that ideals are tested, tempered, and proven. It is in the run of life that principles become tried-and-true. Relationship is the arena. It is where spirituality unfolds.

She who lives in quiet isolation, though her hours may be spent in prayer and meditation, never submits to the challenges of patience and tolerance that relationship has in store for her. She knows much of spiritual latitude, but nothing of longitude. He who passes the days cloistered may emerge from his hermitage on occasion to distribute insights and wisdom gleaned from solitude and countless pages read, but he never dares to test that insight and wisdom in the trials of relationship, so it is disembodied⸺brilliant, no doubt, but lacking the common sense and mettle forged by the fire of mutual responsibility."

~ excerpted from The Triumph of Principles (my upcoming book)