Intimately Bound

There is nothing more predictable than people's behaviour. Humans have a limited range of psychologies and a limited number of ways to work these out. In other words what we do is repeatable and observable. As a result, when you are with people enough you can, within limits, pretty much tell how someone is going to react and what they are going to do when facing a given situation. New and novel behaviour in individuals is rare. The same is true when it comes to group reactions as well...social groups, societies, and whole countries.

In Western societies modern thought has opened the way for individuals to form their sense of identity by eschewing traditional roles and embracing individual psychologies. These psychologies have no inherent social values. Social values emerge and disappear depending on the whims of the group's collective psychologies at play at the time.

So while individual and social values are permeable and transitory, one's commitment to allow for these changes stays anchored in the notion that one is free to enact these changes.

What is really interesting in the midst of this is that there are many who are obstinate in their belief that it is the values that matter and that no one can predict what they are going to do. The irony is that by following someone's decisions enough you will always be able to discern their values in the end. People who claim that their decisions are free from social norms and mores are still publicizing their actions demonstrating the fact that they need to be relationally connected, or else they would be happy to never connect with anyone. In other words, social posturing is predictable among those who claim to be the most independent. Their psychologies will not have it otherwise. And so even among modern thinkers (which includes post-modern or post-Christian thinkers) many in society ascribe to the expectations that you will sell yourself by putting yourself across through presenting a favourable image and of having high expectations of yourself. This is most certainly true of people who ascribe to religion as well. These become the most adroit and aggressive, twisting even the relational aspects of pure, primitive Christianity and Judaism to place themselves in the best light, whereas others who recognize that this aspect has nothing to do with God or their ability to experience God seem to nothing that recommends them for lay, let alone formal religious life.

Contemplative prayer lived outside of formal religious structures has throughout history been accused of being misanthropic, when in truth it simply seeks to escape false, dehumanizing values and to embrace wholistic values that are both honest and a true reflection of both social and individual human measure. Its real concern is simplicity, and voluntary poverty (lack of choice), and genuine openness to the world, and the sacrificial service of others, to whom they know they are in reality intimately bound.

No, in fact it is not difficult at all to say what is going on in the mind of anyone today.