One module in my master’s course covers a variety of classical authors. I was blown away last week when we read Puer Iesus, written by Thomas Aquinas. He extrapolated all sorts of things from one short verse about Jesus sitting in the temple as a 12-year-old. He was methodical. He came up with four points and then went through each of those points with four sub-points. I marvelled at how concisely he wrote.
Part of his thinking was around developing relationships with other people. His points can be just as helpful for us today as they were centuries ago when he wrote them. Cultures change and language develops, but there is an essence to us as humans that manifests wherever we find ourselves in history.
His words, vital for growing our relationships, were respect, purity, humility and discretion. A strange combination perhaps, but valuable for us to consider. I won’t go into his language but will share the gist of where he went mixed with my own ponderings.
Respect
It is natural to look out for number one (ourselves), but that can lead to up puffing ourselves up. Without balancing our self-preservation, we hold others to high standards and let ourselves off the hook. It is good to respect ourselves, but to balance that, we must respect others also.
The effect of respecting others is that we don’t place ourselves over them. Respecting others balances our own positioning in a relationship. It requires us to lower ourselves and consider them. We don’t just consider our own position or our own needs; we consider the needs of others.
In relationship, it is easy to get carried away with our own fulfillment at times, but respecting others invites us to take a step back and look at the relationship from the other’s perspective. What are their needs? Do we give as well as take?
Purity
We’re respecting others… if we take that to an extreme, we can end up devaluing ourselves. Aquinas suggests that we don’t want to lower ourselves ‘excessively’. The point is to put the relationship in proper order, not to lower ourselves to grovelling or losing our dignity or self-worth. What an interesting perspective on purity!
Instead of allowing ourselves to slide to an extreme, he talks about us developing a good reputation. What does a good reputation look like? In a world where we check out the reviews in a restaurant before we even consider entering, or we’re invited to tick boxes when we first interact with an organisation with ‘how did you hear about us?’ and we tick ‘word of mouth’. We know the significance of behaving consistently in private and in our workplace or community so that people have a sense of who we really are. Have you considered purity as an aspect of your reputation? What does purity look like in your context?
I think of the phrase “be as innocent as doves and wise as serpents”. How can we balance purity with protecting ourselves from getting walked over by people less scrupulous than us?
Being aware is really helpful. Years ago, my brother and I walked through a big city, and he observed that I didn’t keep alert to my surroundings. He gave me a stern talking to. I come from a pretty safe part of the world. I hadn’t developed the habit of checking my surroundings. Since then, I have learnt to be observant when I’m out and about. It comes more naturally to people who have grown up in different places. Their country or neighbourhood required them to learn these things early on for survival.
The same can be said for those who grew up in environments where conflict was swept under the mat or minimised. Where you live in the illusion of safety, you don’t develop the awareness of someone who grew up with conflict all around them. If you realise that you’re not observant or not aware, you can work on that. You can be aware of a danger in the way someone acts or a tendency of theirs and maintain respect for that person. By being aware, you approach them differently than you did before, hopefully, more wisely.
Humility
Again, this goes off in a different direction than you might think. I probably would have put humility up with respect and not holding yourself above someone else. Aquinas sees it differently. He talks about obedience. The idea of humbling yourself by assenting to their request.
Sometimes there is give and take in relationship. Sometimes we need to obey in an area we’d rather not. But again, and what I loved about the Puer Iesus, Aquinas doesn’t allow us to get walked over here either. He talks about obedience in the important things, then he goes on to the last point.
Discretion
Be obedient, but only in those things that are right. If your boss asks you to do something illegal – say no. Do something for the other person, but if what they’re asking doesn’t sit well with you, it’s at your discretion to say no.
Perhaps they’re asking for help – sure, feel free to help. But, where that request has become constant and you can see that helping is actually to their detriment, or maybe it’s draining you, perhaps it’s time to say no.
What are your priorities? Which direction are you moving? Are you maintaining the space to do the important things? Make sure that your obedience is in alignment with your purpose. Prioritising helps us to determine what the important things are or are not.
Respect, purity, humility and discretion – it’s fairly straight forward, and beautifully practical. Consider others as much as you consider yourself, but don’t over correct and treat yourself as worthless. Do the important things, but don’t follow blindly.
How’s that for relationship advice? Where you feel pressure to go to an extreme, be encouraged that you can draw things back to a healthier place.
That’s a bit of wisdom for us from the ancient world; two things, applied in a balanced way. In a world of high demands and great complexity, perhaps you can run these ideas over your relationships this week and see if there’s any balancing out to do.
