There’s a chasm of difference between intimacy and interaction. With the widespread phenomenon associated with text-messaging, e-mail, and cell phones, a visitor from another planet might get the idea that, since humans are always connecting and interacting with each other, they must be friendly toward one another, even intimate and caring. It would not take him long however, to detect his first impression was an illusion.

Although virtually everyone is endlessly talking and texting, the irony is, we may be the most disconnected, as well as the most discontented and dysfunctional generation on record. There is division in almost every family—yours, mine, the families we know, as well as conflict in relationships both at school and at work. Furthermore, there is division between races, even religions, cultures, and nations. People are more divided than perhaps any other time in the history of the human race.

Conversation is no more communication than sex is intimacy. Communication and intimacy take presence and practice. They are learned skills. And, what is true of the horizontal relationships of life—humans toward other humans, is also true of the vertical relationship—the Divine/human connection.  Those who know a God-realized life are those who practice the skills necessary for genuine communication and intimacy.

I love the way Rumi, the Persian Poet of Love, put it. He said, “You will know God the way you make love.”  Just as love-making is for many people a connection that has little more than a surface depth to it, so the world is full of people, many of whom are very religious, but whose intimacy with God is little more than skin deep.