Is it any wonder that we have a crisis  of relationality in our nation? After  diligently equipping our children to  out-perform one another in a narrow  number of ways—which becomes  the primary focus of their young  lives and formal education—it is left  to congregations, to community centers, to social groups of various kinds  to teach us how to be in complex  relationship with one another—if  that. By and large, even in relationally-oriented institutions, very few  offer classes or training in how to  engage well in the most fundamental of human needs: how to be  in healthy, mutually meaningful  relationship with one another. It is  as if, en masse, we have collectively  decided that these skills are somehow  acquired by osmosis. And, if they are  not learned by osmosis, we wait until  someone ‘screws up really bad’ (gets  into difficulty with their community,  at their workplace, or in their personal relationships) and then we enact  a disciplinary model: punitive action  must be taken and boundaries put in place.

Indeed, at times, healthy boundaries  and accountability are needed. But why do we, as a society, make almost  no effort to teach, not just the fundamentals of human relationship, but  the more advanced skills related to:  what do we do when we screw up?  How are we present to one another  across deeply held differences?  What should we do in the midst of  volatile conflict? How do we ‘show  up’ in meaningful ways for the  diversity that we claim to value and  constantly stumble over? What do  we do with our own subjectivity  and reactivity in the midst of such  critical relational needs?

This is a spiritual crisis, for ‘spirit’  (however we choose to understand  it) is ultimately about interconnectedness, interdependence, and the  connective tissue invisibly binding  everything and everyone to each  other. When we are struggling with  how to relate to one another—how  to even care about one another—in  one of the wealthiest nations in the  history of planet Earth, a nation in  which no one need ever starve or  sleep without a roof over their head,  and yet people do—there is a profound crisis of disconnection. When  it feels ‘safer’ to only be among those  who almost exclusively think like  ‘us’ —cutting off neighbors, family  members, community members,  and co-workers who hold divergent needs and experiences—we are  deepening that disconnection, not  healing it or working with it.

The frayed connective tissue of our  society must first be strengthened  locally, wherever we are, with  whichever groups of people we are  immediately connected to. Only as  tissue gets stronger, as it first heals  and then grows, can it bear the harder  and more weighty loads. Social, civic,  and communal healing requires more  than convalescence, or worse, hiding  in cliques of uniformity. It requires  building muscle, in this case a spiritual-relational muscle. This muscle,  this connective tissue, requires  challenging and transforming the  faulty assumptions that have been  shredding it; it requires practice with  relational skills that many of us were  never taught and some of us may feel  embarrassed not to have or intimidated in learning; it requires patience  and grounding in love, love, and then  even more love. We are already—each  and every one of us—siblings to one  another and to all that exists at the  level of ‘spirit,’ essence, the ontological  nature of ‘all that is.’ We just need to  start behaving like we really get that.  The good news is that intentional  practice and learning—not osmosis— can get us there.

This piece is an excerpt from a larger essay of the same title.  A link to Rev.  Manish Mishra-Marzetti’s full essay is available on our website, clfuu.org.