August 7, 2010-
After living in a Benedictine monastery for only a week it is fascinating to see how the essential individuality of each community member perpetually blooms and unfurls in the midst of what would appear to an onlooker as a stark winter landscape.
It is the contrast of this composition that gives birth to its beauty and joy. In communion, the walls people build for themselves in order to maintain a specific self image in society begin to break down. A similar event occurs when two people enter into a intimate relationship. An essential component of that emotional intimacy is that the two people let down there guard (if only for a moment) and the feeling of relaxation-the feeling of letting go of the insescent pressure to project the ideal self image- is experienced as euphoria.
In both cases--in the monastery with several people or in the romantic relationship with one person--the feeling of perfect euphoria begins to fade as one becomes TOO familiar with the personal idiosyncracies that are exposed with intimacy.
But this is not a bad thing. It is the impossible (and beautiful) challenge of love.
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