Two small words. A relationship-status “option” on Facebook. And, regardless of the reasons or circumstances, all too true. Relationships are complicated.
To think that they are easy, sans junior high and high school, is just naive. They require effort, time, energy, compromise, grace, give-and-take, sacrifice, emotion, commitment, and will. And that’s just a cursory list.
I have no illusion that “it’s complicated” will move to “it’s perfect” or “it’s blissful” or “it’s all I’ve ever hoped for.” I had those illusions years ago and they were, indeed, just illusions. Frankly, it’s my awareness of such as illusion that makes me that much happier today. I know what I’m getting into! And I know what another’s getting.
I’m complicated. I’m a jumble of emotions, thoughts, theories, philosophies, and practices. I am highly organized and can go weeks without cleaning a bathroom. I can wax eloquent on numerous topics and be stumbling for words, sometimes within the same conversation. I am deliberate, intentional, and strong and can quickly move to nearly involuntary tears and overwhelming, unexplainable levels of emotion. I can vacillate from heated debate to the desire for a tender embrace in mere seconds. And though I am self-sufficient and strong, I am a sucker for a man who will display strength that matches, if not exceeds my own.
It would be an easy default to critique my quirkiness; this disparate display of characteristics and moods. Instead, years of experience (and hopefully a growing level of wisdom) now translates to grace – extended to self and hopefully others. Of course I am complicated! And so are you! Who would want for less?
The simple does nothing for me. Give me the challenge, the twisting plot, the Gordian knot. I’d far prefer it over easy math. I want the challenge, the stimulation, the investment required.
A couple nights ago, while reading The Case For God by Karen Armstrong, I realized that the reality of “it’s complicated” might make far more sense than I had earlier realized. She says this:
There is no clear, consistent image of God in Genesis. In the famous first chapter, the Creator God appears center stage, with no rival, supremely powerful and benign, blessing all the things that he has made. But the rest of Genesis seems to deconstruct this tidy theology. The God who was supremely powerful in chapter 1 has lost control of creation within two chapters; the utterly fair and equitable God, who has blessed everything impartially is later guilty of blatant favoritism, and his somewhat arbitrary choices (the chosen ones are rarely paragons) set human beings murderously against each other. At the time of the Flood, the benign creator becomes the cruel destroyer. And finally the God who was such a powerful presence in chapter 1 fades away and makes no further appearances, so that at the end of the book, Joseph and his brothers have to rely on their own dreams and insights – just as we do. Genesis shows that our glimpses of what we call “God” can be as partial, terrible, ambiguous, and paradoxical as the world we live in.
This is far from upsetting to me. Rather, I had my highlighter uncapped and underlining as fast as possible, my heart beating faster and more enthusiastically as I moved through the paragraph. For in this description of God, I see myself; a God who is just as complicated as me. Partial. Terrible. Ambiguous. Paradoxical. Just like me.
Yes, it’s complicated. Relationships are. Life is. God is. I am.
This is good news. We’re hardly alone. In fact, we should take comfort: the more complicated our life feels, the more resonant we might just be with the Divine, with the heartbeat of all life, with the Reality that spins our planet, enables a sun to rise and set, a moon to glow, an ocean to ebb and flow, a child to be born, a relationship to even exist…
Yes, it’s complicated. Thank God.
And maybe, just maybe, acknowledging such is the most simple thing we can do.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
A beautiful post, Ronna. I am also complicated. So are my relationships. My life as a quadriplegic is more complicated than most other’s. But I have found that the more complicated I become, the more easily I am able to relate and connect with other people. Amazing — isn’t it? Complexity and experience keep me real.
Tracy Todd´s last [type] ..Out to Lunch with the Boys
You are definitely real, my friend – and stunningly beautiful in all your complexity. ‘Honored to have you in the mix.
Love this, as always. The whole thing.
I am actually a tad bit concerned about how God is portrayed the majority of the time these days. In order to ‘sell Christianity’, we’ve made it easy. God is great. God will do great things for you.
We don’t like to talk about the dark side. We don’t like to talk about sin or bringing the shadow into light. And we certainly stay far far away from things like….Ezekiel.
We turn the flood into a cute story about God saving the animals for children. We forget that he was *destroying* everything else.
It’s too hard to look at it that way, I guess.
But I’m like you. For some reason, this gives me a sense of relief in understanding God and in understanding myself.
It’s all complicated. More than it’s popular to acknowledge – in relationships, in politics, with God, ourselves, life in general. And that’s what keeps it interesting.
Love!
deb
Yep.
This is good. Good to know that my experience is not unique, that there are others, other who I admire, who share this same characteristic.
It took a lot of years to accept the contrary, contradictory qualities my character embodies. Years of trying to understand how I can sometimes be so much one thing and yet sometimes be so much its opposite.
And it took much longer to realize that it is not sometimes, that in fact I am always those extremes.
Yet the learning has gone deeper. Not only am I all those things, but I am all the points in between. Not in some wishy washy compromise kind of way, but I am all points on that curving line at all times. And therein is the Beauty, the human-ness, the wholeness.
Our souls must be so vast, so huge to accommodate so much all the time.
How Beautiful is that?
Hugs and butterflies,
~Teresa~
Teresa´s last [type] ..Entranced by her Infinite wiles- total eclipse
“Our souls must be so vast, so huge to accommodate so much all the time.” Yes…and therein lies evidence of the Divine, I think. Beautiful, Teresa. Thank you. And no…you are not the only complex one. In fact, many days, I’m quite certain I have the corner on that market.
so loving this post, and everyone’s comments.
i think relationships are complicated because by and large, most people are complicated; and personally, i would much rather someone thought me “complicated” than boring.
SOOO with you on this one! Complicated trumps “boring” every single time.