From Len Sweet's new book

Out of the Question...Into the Mystery : Getting Lost in the GodLife Relationship Humans find it quite difficult to live with one another even during the best of times. Some of us aren?t emotionally wired for intimacy. Some of us have crippling flaws that make relationships difficult. In fact, some of history's greatest contributors have been relationship-challenged. As an adult, Isaac Newton shunned personal intimacy in all its forms, preferring his laboratory of the mind to living specimens. Henri Nouwen, who inspired many of us to move deeper into relationships with God and one another, had trouble himself developing intimacy with others. Relational disorders abound among creative people. During the Second World War, while they were both in Yugoslavia, English satirical novelist Evelyn Waugh and his friend Randolph Churchill (son of Winston) got in constant fights. Churchill one day exploded, "I thought you were supposed to be a Christian and a Catholic." To which Waugh replied, "And think how much worse I would be if I wasn't." But we live in a culture that makes relationships harder while stimulating the hunger for relationships. The more globally the market economy structures itself, the more relentless the assault on all nonmarket social relations. This makes the church's role in strengthening the social and ecological webs in which humans live all the more important. Unfortunately, the culture seems to be more aware of this than the church. The most highly visible people addressing the impoverishment of our relationship skills are "relationship ministers" such as Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, Oprah, and (my favorite) Delilah.