A musical version of Chaucer?s Canterbury Tales enjoyed a blessedly brief run in England. The production?s theme song was Amor Vincit Omnia  love conquers all. This love is intended to help them conquer the formidable temptations of the seven deadly sins in their spiritual pilgrimage toward God. As the pilgrims entertain one another with stories on the way from London to Canterbury, it becomes clear that most stories deal with the topic of human love. How should partnerships of love be nourished? How can friends get along with one another? How can husbands and wives love one another? How can people manage to get along with one another? .

Too many people either blatantly or secretly crave control, power, or mastery over other people in their life. A case could be made that the most irresistible temptation to misuse power is the temptation to take control of other people?s lives. Wives and husbands do it. People in committed relationships do it. Parents, children and siblings do it. Friends do it. Employers do it, and on and on.

The temptation is real and ongoing for all of us, especially in our relationships with those who are closest to us. People living together in committed relationships, for example, have so many ways of trying to control and manipulate one another that it becomes difficult for the manipulated one to experience personal growth through the exercise of his or her own unique gifts. This manipulation implies a presumption that the other will never be capable enough to make his or her own decisions and choices. If one sees another as indecisive and immature, the temptation to take over and live life for them is an impulse which says, in effect: "See that they stay that way. Manipulate them so that they will never lose that exaggerated sense of dependency you?ve been cultivating for years."

A healthy loving relationship is based on a willingness of each of the parties to call forth the unique gifts of the other. The desire to manipulate and control is a contradiction of this essential ingredient. Whether you believe that God made humanity to reflect God?s own image or not, I believe you will agree that there is the potential for great harm when we try to get others to think and act like us and do what we want them to do. It is problematic when we try to create the world in our own image. A person achieves wholeness of life to the degree that he or she is allowed to live into the fullness of the unique and precious singularity of self. When we give in to the temptation to manipulate and control, when we try to recreate the other in our own image, we stifle this process. Let it be!

One of the most loving things we can do for the persons who are close to us is to affirm their unique gifts; to affirm their personal integrity; and to accept them for who they are. But this is possible only if we are simultaneously affirming our own individuality, our own unique gifts, our own personal integrity.

Thus far I have focused upon relationships between folks who share an intimate closeness. But of equal importance is this question: How does love work in the difficult relationships of everyday life? On Sundays, as a priest in the Episcopal Church, I speak and sing about God?s love and often find myself briefly floating on a cloud of good will for all my neighbors, all my brothers and sisters. However, when the first rough spot punctures that warm feeling and my good will evaporates, I often limp though the rest of the week bruised and battered by the difficulties of trying to get along with friends, family, parishioners, and the other people that I supposedly love.

I have concluded that a major part of the problem of maintaining harmonious relationships exists because no two people ever share the same views or likes and dislikes. Even the most masterful manipulator cannot mold the other into an exact duplicate.

Having read thus far you are probably eager to hear a clear and succinct answer. Well, I sure do wish I had one. Different spiritual traditions offer a wide variety of wonderful answers but most lack the instructions for building a bridge which provides an adequate span between the problem and the solution. The various answers usually mirror the words of The Canterbury Tales theme song: Amor Vincit Omnia- love conquers all.

My own take on the situation comes from a sermon preached by the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich. The sermon is entitled "You Are Accepted" and was published in The Shaking of the Foundations. Tillich is speaking of the Christian concept of grace: "Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us as we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life... It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our manipulative ways, our weaknesses, our hostilities, our lack of direction... have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks through into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ?You are accepted for who you are. You are accepted?... If that happens to us, we experience grace." (Foundations, pp. 153) If we experience acceptance "just as we are" it paves the way for increasing our ability to accept others. We are transformed when acceptance overwhelms the need to control and manipulate.

I sometimes have difficulty in understanding that "love conquers all." But I never have trouble understanding that every one of us can be touched by grace and transformed by love. версия для печати

? Christopher Platt