Lack in relationships
Money is such an important reality-symbol in the modern world, and most of us really do get hung up with it to some extent. And yet, there’s nothing bad in itself about money. The problem with money has to do with our motivations for seeking it and the ways we use it. In the process of getting money, some people can realize that money isn’t going to resolve their sense of lack, and some of them start to look at money in a new way. They can use it to change the world in a good way. It’s not money itself, as the Bible says, it’s our love of it. It’s the way we crave it and use it.
In the case of romantic love or sexual fulfillment, the same point can be made. There’s nothing wrong with romantic love or sexuality in itself. Again, it’s the way that they get distorted when our lack gets projected into them. Romantic love becomes a problem when we expect our relationship with another person to solve our sense of lack. That places enormous burdens on the relationship, burdens that relationships usually can’t endure because the other person can’t do that for us. The other person cannot be our God. Nevertheless, for many of us it is relationships with other people that open up our hearts to the world. A relationship can open you up to a kind of love that becomes much more than one’s own desire, which is what touches me so deeply about Etty Hillesum. Those who get involved in relationships can realize that sex or the other expectations they have of the relationship aren’t getting them what they want. A common response to that is breaking up: obviously, this isn’t the right person for me; time to find someone else who will fill up my sense of lack. When that person doesn’t work out, we keep looking for someone new, trying to recover that romantic glow. But there’s another possibility: transforming our way of understanding the relationship, so it becomes an opening to something deeper, to seeing through to the other side of our sense of lack, to realizing that there’s something more profound and more creative going on there.
David Loy
Lack and Liberation in Self and Society
http://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/holos/davidloy.html
In the case of romantic love or sexual fulfillment, the same point can be made. There’s nothing wrong with romantic love or sexuality in itself. Again, it’s the way that they get distorted when our lack gets projected into them. Romantic love becomes a problem when we expect our relationship with another person to solve our sense of lack. That places enormous burdens on the relationship, burdens that relationships usually can’t endure because the other person can’t do that for us. The other person cannot be our God. Nevertheless, for many of us it is relationships with other people that open up our hearts to the world. A relationship can open you up to a kind of love that becomes much more than one’s own desire, which is what touches me so deeply about Etty Hillesum. Those who get involved in relationships can realize that sex or the other expectations they have of the relationship aren’t getting them what they want. A common response to that is breaking up: obviously, this isn’t the right person for me; time to find someone else who will fill up my sense of lack. When that person doesn’t work out, we keep looking for someone new, trying to recover that romantic glow. But there’s another possibility: transforming our way of understanding the relationship, so it becomes an opening to something deeper, to seeing through to the other side of our sense of lack, to realizing that there’s something more profound and more creative going on there.
David Loy
Lack and Liberation in Self and Society
http://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/holos/davidloy.html
