I am starting to read I and Thou for class, and while I will not get into the complexity of all this book, I will describe its effect on me.It has to do with our relation to another.
To have a genuine encounter with another, we must approach one another in all of our humanity, and in doing so, we approach one another in all of who we are in God. When we do not relate to another as genuine human beings, we lose the presence of God. And if the presence of God is not existing in relation to one another, we lose the ability to relate to that person in their full humanity, as a human being, and not as an object. Both God and the fullness of humanity must be present for there to be a genuine encounter with another.
For example. If you come to me expressing how hard the week has been for you, I have three basic choices of encountering and relating to you. I can focus more on you, on God, or hold both of these. To simply focus on all of you, I objectify you. I treat you as an object, nothing more and nothing less. Now when I simply focus on all of God in talking to you, I take away your humanity. I tell you to 'just trust in God' or 'things will all work out for you in the end because God loves you'. This is an abstraction of the real you. It foregoes who you are and treats you as a means in order to find the end in God. This also treats you as an object. It does not take into account your humanity. It doesn't take into account what you think and feel, how your heart aches and longs. Now when encountering you I hold both the full humanity of who you are and the full presence of who God is in you, I encounter a true relationship. I hold all of who you are in God, which is found in honoring all of who you are as a human being.
Everything we are is to be given glory to God. Yet we cannot give glory to God without fully honoring the person. They play off of each other; the relation is reciprocity, a give and take. They must both be held. Where full humanity and full divinity meet, we encounter true relationship. One that honors the person because it honors God, and honors God because we honor each other.
May we hold both of these when we meet. May we approach each other recognizing and treating one another in the very deepness of respect, and at the same time know that this can only be true when we acknowledge the full glory to be given to God.
2 comments:
That's right. I stalk everyone's blog. I'll admit it.
Anyway, I read about the first ten pages of I-Thou one night in Milwaukee. I don't remember much about it except thinking, wow, this guy is on to something here. But tough read. He should have discovered McLaren's "fictional narrative" eh?
vroooom, that is the sound of this one going right over my head.
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