Let
me be honest with you. I have
crushes. My latest crush is on a Jewish
philosopher/theologian named Martin Buber.
I heart Martin Buber. For my most
recent module we were required to read two books by Buber, I and Thou and Good
and Evil. I’d probably heard of Buber
before that but I’d never read Buber before that. I read I and Thou first and my initial reaction
was, “Martin Buber, where have you been all my life?” Buber speaks my language, or I speak his, and
this little book gave me a grid for understanding myself and my little world a
whole lot better. Ultimately the book
gave me some truth that empowered me to relate to other people in a whole new
and much healthier way than ever before.
In
I and Thou, Martin Buber describes the nature of man’s relationship to
the world around him. He says that we experience
or encounter the world as “I/It” or as “I/Thou”. The world around us is bent towards
experiences where we collect data, make observations and evaluations based on
senses and understanding that always keep the other at some distance,
“I/It”. Buber calls us to the second
way, the way of encounter wherein we discover the depth of “I” through
relationship to the “Thou” that is transcendent in everything around us (even
your cat). In this level of relationship
we actually discover the fullness of our own identity as it is reflected by our
connection to the Thou we encounter in people, places and things around us.
Buber
makes this observation, “We say, “far away”; the Zulu has a sentence-word
instead that means: “where one cries, ‘mother, I am lost.’ ” And the Fuegian
surpasses our analytical wisdom with a sentence-word of seven syllables that
literally means: “they look at each other, each waiting for the other to offer
to do that which both desire but neither wishes to do.”[1] This passage made me think of a visit to the
Grand Canyon and trying to capture what I saw through there by taking a
photograph. Looking at the image later,
it wasn’t even close to capturing the actual encounter with the Grand Canyon
when I looked into the abyss and found the abyss is looking back into me. This is not mere semantics but something real
that is common to human beings. Our
encounters are much bigger than our language makes room to communicate and we
need to live with an awareness of this moment and everything that is happening
in it rather than reduce it to something hollow, just a snap shot of the real
thing.
This
“reduction” is what experience leads us to.
We fit our nouns (people, places and things) into neat categories and
labels and then pin them forever onto boards under glass like a collection of
dead flowers or insects. Encounter takes
this moment and allows our nouns to be what they will be as we discover who we
are (I) in response to their being (Thou).
It
is confrontation that uncovers who we really are beyond the pale illusions of
who we think we are or we think we would like to be. “No thing is a component of experience or
reveals itself except through the reciprocal force of confrontation.”[2] We all require the other to fully become who
we are. Even our “enemies” help reveal
who we are by the way we respond to our confrontation with them. We are like a point on a map that is
meaningless unless we understand where it falls on the map in relationship to
other points. We should value each
other, even our “enemies” because without them we will not become our true
self.
In
regard to community, and all these other points of relationship, Buber writes,
“True community does not come into being because people have feelings for each
other (though that is required, too), but rather on two accounts: all of them
have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to a single living center,
and they have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to one another.”[3] This is the “centred set” and we are all
moving towards the centre, Jesus, or away from the centre but it is exactly our
relationship to the centre and to those around us who are also either moving
closer or further, that defines us.
Buber,
intentionally or unintentionally, describes the nature of living the crucified
life in I and Thou. This is a book that
I will return to again and again as it has already given me a new framework for
many thoughts and feelings that have grown in me through study and experience
but needed a structure to make the connections.
The practice of I and Thou creates an attitude that removes “enemies”
from our world and challenges us to do the hard work of pursuing encounters
rather than collecting experiences. I’m enjoying a new way of living that
requires nothing from other people and how they behave or perform in my little
play in which I star. I’m learning to
encounter, to improvise, to discover who I really am as the positive tension of
relationship brings me into focus.
I’ve
got a lot to learn but this I know: Jewish philosophers are hot.
[1] I
and Thou, Trans. Kaufmann (Martin Buber and Walter Kaufmann) - Highlight on
Page 77 | Loc. 950-51
[2] I
and Thou, Trans. Kaufmann (Martin Buber and Walter Kaufmann) - Highlight on
Page 80 | Loc. 984-86 |
[3] I
and Thou, Trans. Kaufmann (Martin Buber and Walter Kaufmann)- Highlight on Page
94 | Loc. 1162-64 | Added on Wednesday,
February 01, 2012, 08:02 PM
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