Pilgrim Band - Relationships

Pilgrim Band: Relationships

Postmodern people are desperate for “authentic” relationships. Some know it. Some pretend not to know it. But the signs are plain to see. Addictive social media, mental health crises, serial broken intimacies, isolated in space and stretched in time, and so on. The diagnosis is fairly common.

But when asked what, exactly, we are looking for, we find it remarkably difficult to define. It is easier to say what an “authentic” relationship is not than what it is. It is not judgemental, dogmatic, exclusive, competitive. It is not limited by gender, age, income, education. It is not about compatible politics, work associations, sports enthusiasms, common opinions, or compatible personalities.

I don’t have a positive description of “authenticity” in general, but I have gained some clarity about successful mentoring relationships, and why pilgrim bands form and why they are sustained. The authenticity of the pilgrim band is based on two shared qualities: an optimystic attitude and unassuming amity (see pp.171-175 of my book).

The term “opti-mystic" is my own coinage, a combination of the Latin word “opti-” (meaning choice or intentionality) and the ancient term “mystic” (meaning the apprehension of truth beyond appearances). In other words, pilgrim bands form, and are sustained, because participants see in each other a courageous decision to hope in spite of circumstances. This is a deliberate decision not to despair or give up. It is what my mentor called the courage to be rather than surrender to non-being.

This courageous decision is often held despite the logical arguments of our supposed “superiors” or the taunting of even our close friends. They may be friends, but they are not part of the pilgrim band. The choice is made possible because of the “mystic” roots of our courageous choice. Despite any argument to the contrary, we sense that there is a Spirit (higher power, unconditional concern, power-of-being, force of life, or whatever) that is the real source of truth beyond human reason.

Hope, therefore, is simultaneously within our grasp and beyond our grasp. And we cannot let go of it because it has not let go of us. That is an “opti-mystic attitude”.

The second quality that forms and sustains the pilgrim band I call “unassuming amity”. This is something other than the usual meaning of friendship, love, romance or kinship. It is essentially a radical trust. It is “pragmatic” in the sense that it is to our advantage to travel together than separately. Participants count on each other to “have their backs”, so to speak, to “be their when it counts”, despite whatever likes or dislikes they may or may not share.

Unassuming amity is a kind of ego-less relationship. It is not founded on the assumption that I need you, or that you need me, but that we are better off together. We don’t make a lot of assumptions about another. We simply accept another and allow them to reveal themselves in their own time and in their own way, in an absolute guarantee of safety. Unassuming amity is the feeling pilgrims share when they are walking with strangers in the same direction, facing the same challenges, and hoping for the best outcomes.

Hope, therefore, is sustained by a deeper, more radical trust in one another that goes beyond, but is open to discuss, any barrier to our shared humanity and our shared quest for meaning and purpose.