…this culture puts a great emphasis on relationships in the intimate sphere, especially love relationships. These are seen as the prime loci of self-exploration and self-discovery and among the most important forms of self-fulfillment. This view reflects the continuation in modern culture of a trend that is now centuries old and that places the center of gravity of the good life not in some higher sphere but in what I want to call “ordinary life,” that is, the life of production and family, of work and love. Yet it also reflects something else that is important here: the acknowledgement that our identity requires recognition by others.

The Ethics of Authenticity by Charles Taylor, The Need for Recognition p.45

I would wager that most everyone in this Starbucks on a Tuesday afternoon are secular minded, even should one or two present themselves at a church worship service on a regular basis. If you speak briefly with anyone at random you would not encounter anyone informally using religion tinged vocabulary. Perhaps in the deep South, in a rural area you’d discover an alternate sensibility, phrases such a “God willing” or “bless you” possibly will be heard. Even among practicing Catholics, as well as adherents to Evangelicalism living in suburbia, or in a city – the expectations of 21st century Americans are light years removed from that of European ancestors of the middle ages. For ten centuries or so we in the west located our hopes in “life after this life.” Construction of Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris took roughly 182 years.  Stone masons surely considered the job “good work” as they expected their bonus in the afterlife.

Expectations have changed. The change has been a long time coming. This very life, the one life that I now experience is the nexus of my expectations. Here and now is where meaning, the coincidence of a luck-of-the-draw and preparation and effort will prove to have been timely and fruitful. Or not. Because “success” however I may chose to define it cannot be guaranteed.

Taylor astutely observes that intimate relationships, a dynamic of communication between lovers is recognized as the epitome of this life. Durable love is suggestive of the arc of life-together, partnership in homemaking, jointly to nurture and protect children, and to shelter one another through thick and thin. The ideal of a productive life requires relationship(s) that you can depend upon. Hormonal excitement subsides and friendship remains.

I think this means that each is able to see the other, to hear the true voice of the other. Recognition amounts to sharing a history, even seasons of agony, such that each entertains that the other will exceed even what they expect of themselves.

In this life, you were seen, you were recognized. All of it, I mean every bit of it was worth it.

That is what Taylor is saying, it seems to me.

This song will serve us for today. Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence performed by Disturbed. You might not think this a love song. I believe that it is.