“Ephphatha,” the priest explained during the recent baptism of a grandson, is Aramaic for “Be opened.”

The word occurs in Mark 7:33-34, where some people in a crowd brought a deaf man with a speech impediment to Jesus for healing. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, ‘Eph′phatha,’ that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”

The chapter ends with amazed witnesses saying, “He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.”

Ephphatha stayed with me after the baptism ceremony. Pronounced ‘ef FA tha,” it rolls easily from the tongue despite all those consonants. Eventually, I connected ephphatha to a review copy of Noelle Mering’s soon-to-be-published “No Contact: How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships and How We Can Repair Them.”

No contact is the name many people today give to a relationship with friends or family in which one party breaks off all contact with another. It’s estrangement with a capital E: no visits, no phone calls, no texts. Silence and separation are the essence of no contact.

As Mering makes clear, her book is not for those who have “cut contact over an abusive relationship,” like physical or mental mistreatment. Rather, her analysis aims at those who chop off all ties with certain people for reasons that range from political and religious conflicts to Mom and Dad’s rules for parenting.

“No Contact” painstakingly sifts through this wreckage of relationships in millions of American families. Through extensive research and interviews, Mering explores the causes and consequences behind this movement of severed relationships: our current political divisions; our therapeutic culture, with amateur podcast psychologists sometimes pretending expertise; the victim mentality so prevalent today; the deliberate deconstruction of the family; and the narcissism of a me-centered faith that has displaced God.

As they progress through this book, astute readers will wonder at the shortsighted vision of those who pursue no contact with their loved ones. They may be happier in the moment having broken free of what they regard as shackles, but what happens five and 10 years down the road? If they have children, for instance, how do they explain the missing grandparents? And are they themselves not setting an example whereby those same children might someday follow their example and go no contact on them?

Fortunately, by conducting a thorough tour of this ongoing cultural calamity, Mering helps readers understand not only the dangers of no contact, but possible ways to tunnel through this mess and find some ways of escape, illumination, and healing. In the many cases cited, all manners of mending appear: the realization by the instigators of no contact that they committed a grievous wrong, a change of heart in the face of an impending death, the refusal of aggrieved parents or siblings or friends to give up on the loved one who has left them. Even in those cases where rupture seems irreparable and permanent, Mering and those she interviews offer help on creating a path forward.

These splits are but small mirrors reflecting the division and brokenness of our culture at large. Ideology, the blame game, the elevation of feelings and emotions over facts, logic, and reason, the demonization of the other, the smug self-righteousness: all are trends at work both in the nation and in individual souls. Just as the no contact movement heightens alienation and loneliness, so too do our rancorous national divisions, leaving us bitter enemies with those we should consider fellow citizens. The proof can be found in the daily headlines and editorials.

“Be opened,” Jesus commanded the deaf man, penetrating that realm of silence, and he was healed. The no contact movement runs in the opposite direction, with ears forbidden to hear and tongues forbidden to speak.

“Be closed” is the command given by the gurus of the no contact crowd, and the consequent isolation is a profound, ugly, and sometimes unhealed wound.

In a nation supposedly suffering from an epidemic of loneliness and with anxiety and depression are at historic highs, Mering’s “No Contact” serves as a red flag against the casual demolition of relationships and a passionate reminder of the value of ephphatha.

—

This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News.

Image credit: Pxhere