Relationship and Risk

A very wise and kind professor of Religious Studies at Hendrix College wrote a powerful book titled “The God Who Risks.”In it he unpacks many traditional understandings of divine providence (how God works or interacts with creation or with the world) and in doing so makes the claim that God is not the removed authoritarian Man in the Sky who has pre-determined everything that has happened and will happen in history; God rather chooses to enter into relationship with human beings risking that they will mess up. And they do, again and again. It is the core of the Biblical story, and I believe it is the story of all of us. I will admit, I have not yet read the book in its entirety; I did however take several courses with this professor in college in which many of this book’s central premises were discussed. I found it transformative, and it seemed to resonate with an essential part of my being and how I have come to understand how human beings relate to one another.

Though every day, week, month and year of history on earth brings its share of heartbreak and wholeness, I have found the past several months to be particularly full of events momentous in both painful and uplifting ways. Marriage equality in multiple of the United States, provocative books encouraging gender equality in the workplace, the physical feats of inspiring champions at the Olympics, significant progress in the national climate justice movement, to name but a few. But on the other hand—devastating disasters like Hurricane Sandy and the tornadoes in Oklahoma, bombings in the city that I’ve called home this year, shootings of small children in Newtown and more shootings in communities that are given but scarce glances from the media. All of this served as a reminder to me of the capacity of human beings to hate with such fierceness.

It has also shown me our capability to love with a love that goes deeper than expression.

To be in relationship is to risk. It is to risk being vulnerable in many ways—to risk that my expectations of a person may not be fulfilled in the ways I so desire; that a friend may not always be there in the way I expect; that a parent may neglect or pass on toxic patterns of behavior to his or her child; that a romantic interest may change his or her mind; that a supervisor or mentor figure will contradict his or her promises of leadership; that faith in God or humanity or the universe will be met with skepticism or broken promises. To enter into relationship is also to trust that the opposites will happen: that my first impressions of those who may seem in whatever ways insignificant or less than “quality” to me will transform into lifelong friends; that despite baggage and impatience, we will learn and grow from our parents and children; that humility and compassion towards our teachers and supervisors will be learned even when our leaders mess up; that even through blunders with romantic somebodies, we will sink further into self-discovery and the discovery of love more thrilling and self-emptying than we could imagine.

I am grateful for risk. Here’s to the continued cycle of relationship and all that it brings.