Can you remember a time in a relationship with someone that after that conversation you knew you’d grown to new depths? You’d encountered intimacy of a friendship/relationship and that intimacy was life-giving?
To have authentic, meaningful relationships we have to dare to live with intimacy.
Intimacy, according to Richard Rohr, could be described as our capacity for closeness and tenderness toward things.
It is often revealed during moments of risky self-disclosure when we let ourselves out and choose to allow others in.
In our intimate moments we are “touched by something we cannot yet endure or carry, but we still love the touch and the invitation to carry.”
We are always larger after any intimate encounter, for it is in these encounters that we grow spiritually. It is always the gift of grace.
We experience life with new richness when we dare to realize that we can stop hiding.
Some say the word “intimacy” comes from the older Latin meaning in timor, or “into fear.”
We reveal and expose our insides and frankly, it is scary. We never know if the other person will receive what is exposed, will respect and embrace it, or . . . they may even run the other way.
Intimacy and developing relationships that will become foundational in our lives is risky. Yet the loneliness that comes without those real relationships is palpable.
What could our lives be like if we dare to make a difference in the lives of those we care about by embracing the power of true intimacy?
ROHR, R. I. C. H. A. R. D. (2019). Yes, And…: daily meditations. S.l.: FRANCISCAN MEDIA.