What is the good life?

The Good Life, not having one (a matter of income, schedules, diet, etc.) but having had one: what is it?  When we ask this question, we are contemplating our lives from two points of view: author and reader, the author on the inside making decisions that further the narrative, and the reader on the outside seeing the complete story as a finished product. The author wants the character in the story, we ourselves, to reach the same conclusion as that reader reflecting on the tale: it was a good life, one worth living.  (Of course, we're not the only authors of our lives, nor the only readers.)

The easiest way to perform this mental gymnastic is to choose a genre with a tried and true narrative with a happy ending, pick one of the good roles, and play it. But we are not always in control of the narrative, nor always convinced by it, so we usually have to improvise and explore, hoping that, instead of regret, we'll feel a solid satisfaction at the outcome.

What might such a good life be? Some answers focus on a 'final score': how much acquired, what status attained, what results achieved, how many accolades won... We may or may not take pride or comfort in the final score but often that is how others evaluate our lives. Looking forward, we hope that with acreage, philosophical assurance, reputation, legacy, etc, we will complacently say to ourselves:"This qualifies as a good life."  There are, however, some problems. 

The word 'score' focuses on something measurable, or at least certifiable. We may argue over the relative amounts of plus or minus in the accounting, but a score is something everyone can see and understand. Yet much of what happens in life evaporates or is too slight and quick to warrant recording and so doesn't show up the account books. The vast bulk of what we call our lives is ignored or forgotten.

Indeed, even the idea of good is problematic in the context of a whole life. Every life includes good and bad. What is bad at one point may be regarded positively later, and vice versa. Indeed, hard experiences often teach us best and our own mistakes teach us best of all. Even the ultimately good is not an unmixed experience if considered in detail. Often it is tinged with dissatisfaction because outcomes are uncertain, vulnerable and imperfect, and there's the ever-haunting question: what else could I have done that would have been better? We have to deal with disappointment, doubt, confusion, frustration, regret regularly whether our experiences are ultimately positive or negative. Life is a dappled thing, an intricate intertwining of many kinds of experiences. To cherry pick only certain outcomes to make up a score does injustice to full richness of our lives.

The word 'final' focuses on the end of life, a very chancy time. Even before the frailties and indignities of age, there are accidents which can affect our legacy. A person's lifetime savings can be lost in a stock market crash; someone's reputation turns sour; one's attainments may be tested up to the last minute; what was a crowning achievement may be undercut or nullified by subsequent events. Yet earlier on in the life, there must have been acquisitions and attainments and achievements and accolades; they just didn't last until the final accounting. 

Think of it as a game. At the end, and for the record, the score is all that matters. It determines what happens next (championships, perhaps); it ranks this team over that; it authorizes the stories that are sources of good memories or moral lessons. Yet the game, while it is played, is in fact the unit of livingness. People remind themselves of this when they say, “It's only a game” or “It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game,” to which the fans and bettors' reply is often a scornful “Yeah, right.”

One alternative to this final score reckoning is to ask each moment to justify itself. We can be like children who laugh when they feel good, cry when they feel bad, and never ask themselves what individual moments might mean in light of those may follow. Given our habit of projecting the future, especially of looking backward from a projected future, it's hard for us to think of a life as a succession of ephemeral moments, not counted, not sorted, not compared, not weighed. 

The good life inherent in the God-in-love concept is different from both the final score and the live-in-the-moment strategies, while respecting both. To go back to sports for a moment, imagine a pick-up game of, say, soccer. There may be a score at the end of the game, and it might be the subject of a few toasts in the pub afterwards, but the game is the point of the afternoon--the sheer activity of moving the ball forward along with some friends, over the ardent opposition of other friends. We might think of the game as a single encounter of many occasions or as many different encounters, but in any case in every game there are bound to be wild kicks and triumphant goals, hard tackles and sweet passes. We might think of life in this way: full of encounters, some pleasant and unpleasant, but overall something thrilling and satisfying to participate in, especially with the prospect of a raucous recap afterwards.  

We can go further. First of all, a soccer game is a set of very particular encounters that we may pursue because we like them or feel we can be good at them. Likewise, in life, we have some say what the encounters we have, and our experiences often prompt us into pursue ones we like or find challenging. Secondly, we can get better at various moves like dribbling, passing, and heading through practice over time. Likewise, we can enhance our interactions with others by improving through practice our deeds of hospitality, friendship and exploration. Finally, by reflecting on our experiences, we enrich our memories of the game, its variations and possibilities and its special moments.

We might thinking of life as a braid of these three ever-ongoing activities: mastering, mapping, and pursuing missions: we become more skilled, get more knowledge, and pursue more of particular kinds of encounters. Schooling is similar. Students learn, for instance, to master reading and writing; they learn masses of material about, say, geography, and organize it all into a working mental atlases of the world; and, not least, they learn what they love, and what questions they want to tackle. Indeed, we can think of the lives of musicians or scholars or parents or any who over time become ever more masterful, ever more knowledgeable, and ever more passionate in their pursuit of rich encounters as models of the good life, according to God-in-love.

We might take it further and think: God-in-love is present in our missions; there's the adventure of engagement with the Other in our masterings, and lastingness of the world to come (think the stories in the pub) in the meditations of our mappings, and all this at each moment of our lives.

Thinking this way helps us avoid privileging the end of life as it is in 'final score' accounts. I find myself sometimes unfairly mocking my younger self for his illusions and ignorance, but his experience has as much right to consideration in evaluation of our life as mine does. Indeed, my current wisdom may be risible in myself 20 years on. Each stage of our lives deserves its respect. The errors of youth are counterbalanced by the boldness of their risk-taking while the successes of age are somewhat offset by their tameness. Drama and depth are two aspects of the richness of encounters which may vary in importance from youth to age, and indeed, from routine situations to chaotic ones, from times of abundance to times of scarcity.

So it's not that final score aspirations are meaningless—they may be legitimate pursuits. But such narratives won't do as models of the good life. A good life is something larger, something longer, with a wider range of hues, value and intensities, and small scale as well as large scale events, as well as surprises and tragedies. A good life is something more like the love play between God-in-love and the Beloved which is being conducted in us and through us everywhere.  

We might still ask the question: how can we know we are on track for a good life according to the God-in-love framework. Three ways: first, there's the trajectory of ever deepening and expanding masteries, mappings and missions which we can keep track of through our reflectings; second, there's  our ever-growing catalog of memorable encounters; third, there are the encounters we can risk today. 

Is God-in-love unreasonable?

Is God-in-love unreasonable? Noson Yanofsky defines reason in his recent "The Outer Limits of Reason" as "the set of processes and methodologies that do not lead to contradictions or false facts." An excellent definition, to my way of thinking. God-in-love is a posited framework, not a process, so the better question to ask is "Does living and thinking within it lead to contradictions and false facts? " The most obvious possible false fact is God-in-love, the divine lover. The second is the beloved Other. The third is "the world yet to come." These are three very controversial propositions. But are they a-priori unreasonable--as I present them? They may be false, but it's hard to say how they could be shown so. They are not explanations which can fail to account for the observations. There are no testable predictions which can be shown to be untrue. They are either the case or not. 

However, the next good question to ask is whether the framework has internal contradictions or, more importantly, whether living in it necessitates denying well- established findings of science or human experience. I don't see that it does. For instance, exploration is implicit to God-in-love, and exactly what science does. What scientists discover has to be acknowledged as a legitimate aspect of the world which we encounter. Likewise, friendship has to acknowledge all the dilemmas of justice and disappointment which are part of just being  human. All the knotty issues of boundaries play out in the practice of hospitality. Logical contradictions? Let's explore them. 

God-in-love seems, in this discussion, very slippery and yet it's not a framework that asserts nothing, recommends nothing, risks nothing. As an approach of the meaning of life, it's big test is whether it makes our lives meaningful. Does it work on that level?  Do we find that conceiving our lives as encounters with others and otherness; and practicing hospitality, friendship and exploration; and thinking that, in doing so, we are participating in something cosmic and everlasting which will eventually have concrete expression, do we find this invests our moments and our sense of our lives as a whole with the kind of heft and luster and expectancy that all things meaningful should have? If the answer is no, then God-in-love is at best irrelevant, at worst, a distraction from something better. 

Regarding recent encounters, let me say marriage is a theater of encounter. Preparing for guests is a perfect occasion for richness of encounter. Here I am, in the midst, rolling the risking die: it's 3. Let me find a productive act of exploration (experimenting, querying, repurposing...?) to engage in, some expenditure of energies (something struggling, changing its form, beginning...?) to be sensitive to. 

Longing, love and death

 At New England Conservatory, a night of longing and love...that ends in death, Juliet's in two small notes. 

What an intense experience! The Britten violin concerto that ravishes me with its slow pizzicato march backgrounding the violin's plunging and ascending. "Pleading" is a word in the program notes, but if so, it's for the fulfillment of some yearning. This is a young man's piece of music, but, I, so much older, feel it just as intensely as the composer seems to. The final movement is a gradual unfolding, a peeling off  petal by petal, and at the end, still no end of desiring. 

God in love, you seem never so real as when this kind of music wrings me. I need to refer to one as vast and deep as you to even imagine a relief. Yet, if engage with you as Other, do I believe that this yearning can be satisfied? that our encounter is satisfaction? Or will encounter over time diffuse and dilute the intensity of longing, render it more like a marriage than a mad romance?

Then Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet, and those exquisite moments drawn with music brush and a palette of such orchestra color. Must, must the lovers die? Of course, death is the climax of love. Yet must it be so? God in love, aching as you are for the Beloved, is tragedy the only possible end that does justice to the intensity of desire?  Will the love move into a new key as yet unconceived and proceed into an open future?  

However my heart feels stretched taut like a string on the violin, I love the longing and would never want to live without it. There's a majesty in its vulnerability. Can I find it, even just glimpse it, in my everyday? Is it, however fleeting, in deeds of hospitality, friendship and exploration which look so forthright and admirable on paper, but in the field...? 

We can sing sometimes what we cannot say. You, the Other we aspire to know, may reveal yourself most fully in music. So be it.  What an evening.

Friendship & Men

.A story in Salon about the need for men to have friends.

Friendship, along with hospitality and exploration, is an essential practice; we might think of it as a virtue. In Lisa Wade's article, mens' friendships are described as usually more shoulder to shoulder than face to face, more about men sharing activities than sharing themselves. She details a cost in health and happiness. I'm struck by the idea that the key characteristic of deep friendship is self-disclosure, the opening up of ourselves to each other, the necessary vulnerability, the rewards...

But I don't know too much about the rewards, beyond what I've read. Yet I take the stand that friendship is, in a sense, what the whole universe aspires to. 

I've taken some deliberate steps toward cultivating this kind of friendship but I confess I feel out of my depth. This is risking taking that feels really risky, and still I'm probably not risking enough. 

Who or what is an Other?

Who or what is an Other? Capitalized as such it seems to have a special ontological status. That which is not me; in short, you, and you, and that over there which I don't seem to have any ultimate say about. In the Unforgiven, the Clint Eastwood character notes, “It's a hell of a thing killing a man...You take away all he's got, and all he's ever gonna have.” But even the exercise of that kind of power may not be the final word on an Other. We may, for instance, find ourselves haunted by what we thought we'd extirpated.

Then there's my foot, an appendage that has been baffling me for a couple of months now, and quite noticeably so this last week. That terminal structure on my right leg has had aches and twinges that have sometimes hobbled me for no obvious reason and at no permanent location. I get out of bed to a throbbing on the inside, or a soreness on the upper arch, or perhaps a warm pain on the outside of the foot, or twinges in the heel. I can and do respond and the pains go away but what was going on? Even if I have an explanation: too much of this, too little of that, the autonomous function of that foot in the context of my whole body persists. We can see this even more clearly when we try to eat after novocaine, or when we try to walk on a leg that's 'asleep'. Suddenly, what was ours to do with as we chose refuses to cooperate and demands to be attended to.  

That attention, that recognition and acknowledgment, and the way we address the suddenly un-invisible and unbiddable, and   of concord we, often impatiently, look forward to represents the richness of our encounter with an Other that's a rebel body part. Richness in encounters isn't always positive as, say, richness in soups but it's what makes encounters meaningful, as I believe they ultimately are.

So, foot, whatever new fanfare of pangs you are rehearsing even now to make me feel ridiculous tomorrow as I hirple down the street to get the bus, I promise to continue the negotiations. We can work it out.

What to include

My first post, and a immediate post-publication question: what should a post be? Does it have to follow a structure or be perfect? Can I engage with my posts sufficiently to keep the project alive? Some thoughts: 

What I want is three or four times a week to post some thoughts concerning

1. God in love: the framework (theory)
2. My encounters (experience)
3. Living the presence/adventure/lastingness way of life (practice)

If only theory, boring; if only experience, pointless; if only practice, inexplicable

What I want is a post format that regularly involves at least two of the three:1 & 2 or 3 & 2. Each blog post should reference some specific encounter, or else the whole exercise will become vaporous.

What about extras? Random remarks and observations that don't fit into any of these categories? Why not just add them as they arise?

Yet there's a formal structure to the reflecting and risking... Perhaps the blog should not just be what I imagine reflecting and risking to be if practiced by an individual or a group: a prayer punctuated by reflecting on encounters and commitments to risking new ones. Maybe the blog needs to be broader and less focused. It's key that the blog be interesting and informative both to readers and to me.

For instance, in dealing with encounters, what I don't want is a relentless (and humorless) working through a checklist of items: a general report of the encounter as it happened, who the Other is, what the alescences were, what the the history of richness was, to be followed by a quick roll of this die, and risking.

I need to hit all these items—theory, experience, practice--regularly not just to make the blog interesting and intelligible to others but to keep myself engaged. I so easily lose sight of the big picture, forget that experiences exemplify the cosmic activity of God-in love, that God-in-love is expressed in practices, that practices lead to experiences, and so on round and round. When I think about particular encounters, it's hard to remember the cosmos and my life at the same time.

This suggests that any post should be like a few bars of a piece of music played by a couple of instruments, but that over time, post by post, the whole score will out. I shouldn't be afraid to deal with abstractions nor with specificities; each post should have something of both; no post can have all of anything.  

Let's see if I can make this work.

Old lady, I saw you

"God-in-love,..."

Old lady, I saw you in the crowd funneling onto the 32 bus. I've seen you before but not lately since I've taken to driving rather than endure the Last Bus/Take My Baby kind of urgency that infects those who are afraid that they'll have to wait for the next, much later, ride home. You're on a cane now, not able to hold the stack of books that I used to see you carry each night. For your husband, I think I remember you said to me, but I wasn't someone you wanted to talk to. I felt slighted but now the tinge is only enough to get me to  pay attention to you, friable as a dried flower, among the bustle of the young and middle-aged. I'm after you. I'd like to hear what you're reading. I wonder if you are now as your husband was then. Doughty then and now. See you later.

"Let the consummation..."

Roll of the die: 3, exploration and watch out for some energy expended. You are someone struggling, striving, stressed, teetering--all too much. Can my exploration include wondering and meditating? What can I actively do?

"Yes!..."

Why? + God-in-love: the framework

What is this blog about?

The encounter--the I-you meeting of a One with an Other--is, I believe, the fundamental unit of meaningfulness for the universe. The argument is developed below in God-in-love. My task in this blog is to regularly reflect on my encounters, risk new ones and report what happens in a way that's interesting and inspiring. 

Will I succeed? I don't know. Let's put it to the test. Tally ho!

 

God-in-love:

the conceptual framework

for

a new account of the meaning of life

1. Conceptual Frameworks

We each have some kind of ultimate conceptual framework that justifies, integrates, coordinates, prioritizes and reconciles our notions of what actually is, what should be, what's possible and what's worth wanting; a structure of ideas that gives us a sense of who we are and who those others are, of what kind of place this is and how it works, of what matters and why anything matters at all. Along the way, it tells us about loss and failure, also love and achievement; helps us integrate the now, the no longer and the not yet; and addresses the point of life itself.

Often this constellation of convictions, usually a blend of tradition and what we've figured out ourselves, is a too-small blanket: if we drag it over to cover one thing, something else is uncovered. What we need for our peace of mind is something that is comprehensive, related to all significant aspects of our lives; coherent, no internal squabbling; and useful, underwriting the assumptions we depend on every day and yet helping us cope with crises when they arise...and crises are sure to arise.

The betrayal of a friend, for instance, may cause us to distrust our ability to know anything; shocking news may cause us to doubt the goodness of good itself; confronted with painful choices, we may feel that freedom is a bad joke; bombarded by options, nothing may seem worth wanting.

Yet, we don't want to feel cornered by what we believe--vulnerable to deception, set up to be disappointed, liable to feeling discredited by the decisions our logic requires or despising ourselves for the values we feel we must endorse. Instead, our schema should be roomy enough for a variety of personal opinions as well as something we can be proud of.

The payoff of a good conceptual framework: confidence, anticipation, excitement, a sense of engagement, meaningful connections to others, the world, the cosmos---and good work to do.

2. Choice

We are free to choose which architecture of concepts seems best. We can entertain different alternatives, test them, refine or replace them if unsatisfactory, or live with and in them if they seem solid and promising.

God-in-love is what I have chosen. It unites “all experience from its most exalted reaches to its meekest resignations”, as Richard Howard wrote concerning the poetry of Mark Van Doren. It shows me how to regularly have real adventures, how to be wholeheartedly present wherever I am, and how to do things which are actually worthwhile and lasting (all this is the learning project of a lifetime). It doesn't disrespect common sense, common decency or common cause. Most importantly, it assures me that love is the fundamental dynamic of the universe and shows me where I stand with regard to it.

A brief synopsis of the major premises: Two invisible beings exist, and there's a love relationship between them that pervades the universe. One is God, the creator. The other is God's Beloved, a being in the process of becoming. We can all participate in this relationship and contribute to the creation of the Beloved every day. This cosmic relationship and my participation in it give zest and meaning to my world and my life. This relationship has a future, and my future is implicated in it.

3. God-in-love

Imagine that God, who 15 billion years or so ago kick-started the universe, is in love, a love of Romeo & Juliet intensity, with a certain distinct being, a being who is emergent from the actions of individuals operating within this universe. God is in love, that is, with an entity already present, yet coming into existence; an individual of independent point of view and purpose, free to assent, refuse or propose. This being is an Other, yet lover as much as beloved and one who is continually responding to God-in-love's attention with reciprocal self-revelation in an I-You 2^nd person interaction ever challenging to both.

God-in-love and the beloved Other: each longing for and delighting in the presence of the other; each interested in what interests the other, what the other chooses to do--and how; each loyal to the fulfillment of the other; each willing to take the place of the other in pain and to give place to the other in joy; and their passionate conversation--the whole universe of ever-evolving complexity drawn in, shared, and appreciated within it--consummating in a world yet to come, a world where the 2^nd person practices of hospitality, friendship and exploration multiply infinitely. 

Imagine also that we, each of us, all alive now or no longer or not yet, to the extent of our readiness to dare any 2^nd person encounters, do in fact contribute to the arising and revealing of this beloved Other; do in fact participate in the very livingness of the Beloved.

Imagine, finally, that each deed of 2^nd person practice, insofar as it represents these Each-with-Other encounters, is a living building block incorporated by God-in-love and the Beloved in a world as complex as this here now and constructed to fully express and explore their love forever.

4. Perspectives

Our words and deeds are shaped by the particular perspectives we have at any moment on ourselves and our world.

The 3^rd person he, she, it perspective addresses tasks and seeks success; its engagements are of utility. The 1^st person I perspective addresses the self and seeks satisfaction; its engagements are of soliloquy. The 2^nd person you perspective addresses a you, an Other endowed with its own potentiality, energy and power--its own livingness—that reveals itself, reacts, replies, or converses (even nags with an interior voice like that of doubt or conscience). Its engagements are of encounter. 

This Other is not us (as a mirror image), not of us (as a fingernail paring), not ours (as a bank account), not for us (as an employee), and yet that which can’t be ultimately denied, escaped, compelled, or co-opted, and with a claim on existence no less convincing than our own. In fact, we encounter in each Other the product of a unique history of prior encounters, and regarding form, of alternative incarnations. This 2^nd person perspective moves us to risk encounters (of one, or several, or a lifetime of occasions) with proximate Others in ‘conversations’ that embody the dynamic relationship of God-in-love and the beloved Other.

(The word you here not a targeting term as in Hey, you! or a reference to an indefinite someone as in You would think... or a politeness as in You're welcome... and so on, but rather an acknowledgment of an autonomous presence: …for you, or Why, it's you..., or You...?)

The relationship of God-in-love and the beloved Other changes the look of nothing but the meaning of everything. Living as if God-in-love is the case: what inspires is presence, what ensues is adventure, what results is lastingness.

5. What inspires is presence…

God-in-love woos the Beloved in me through each encounter I have, and at the same time, woos the Beloved in those who encounter me. The presence of God-in-love, ever-aroused by the prospect of meeting the Beloved, pervades the space where encounters are possible. This presence inspires me, activating my Other-seeking consciousness, and glamorizing potential Others with something like aroma from the kitchen so that my appetite is whetted for encountering the Not-me.

So whenever I am face to face with an Other, I am aware: “God-in-love is wooing me (and the Beloved) through you, and you, through me (I manifesting the Beloved). Their wooing is our doing; our doing, their wooing.”

The presence of God-in-love manifests itself to us in the interestingness and awesomeness, the sheer come-hitherness, of the world, in all its many parts, aspects and levels, and as a whole--the world not us but we in it and with it. We also experience this presence as our desire to seek out and accept 2^nd person encounters, that is, in our readiness to recognize otherness, to acknowledge this Other, to address ‘You’, to look forward to what ‘We’ can be, and to be intrigued and impressed by the meeting, and in our willingness, to dare 2^nd person deeds.

Poised both to take risks and give thanks, aware of ourselves reaching out from where we are, and of Others extending themselves toward us, we take a stance that situates us in the world and in the cosmic order. As Others to God-in-love, and as Other-seekers in our own right, we individually and collectively participate in the progressive emergence of the beloved Other at the passionate call and response of God-in-love.

6. What ensues is adventure...

There's no adventure without risks or potential rewards; in encounters with any Other, there is opportunity for both. The 2^nd person practices of hospitality, friendship and exploration offer us satisfaction, companionship and excitement, and in particular, interest and wonder. They also expose us to discomfort, loss and failure, and in particular, guilt and grief. Each encounter is its own adventure and we are invited to a life of adventures.

Complexity is the texture of the universe in every dimension and on every scale. We are immersed and participant in complex adaptive systems which exhibit both order and chaos, are shaped by the actions of independent agents (ourselves included), and therefore, impossible to completely control or predict. Likewise, to honor the courtesies of mutual relationship, we don't try to control or predict everything an Other does. These two limits on what can be done and what can be known mean that God-in-love is not almighty nor all-knowing, but rather an adventurer, taking risks in hope of reward in wooing the beloved Other.

God-in-love feels real joy as we perform deeds of generosity, constancy and query as well as real anguish as 2^nd person practices are (all too often) maliciously perverted, twisted even into acts of extermination, torture and slavery. What is ultimately at stake for God-in-love as for any lover is the relationship with the Beloved: that it be mutual, each honoring the other, that it be free and forever maturing, that it welcome everything that matters to each and elicit the fullness of both, that it be passionately interactive, that its inevitable occasions of regret and remorse be ultimately transcended and redeemed.

The risk of disappointment lurks in any relationship, either party or both to blame. At times, for good reasons, hospitality may be withheld, friendship withdrawn, exploration halted, or for no good reason, they may be replaced by rejection, deception, or indifference. The adventure of both God-in-love and the beloved Other, the adventure in which we participate, is for each to act in freedom but so as not to quench or qualify the wholehearted ardor for each for the other.

7. What results is lastingness...

Our readiness, moment by moment, situation by situation, to honestly dare 2^nd person encounters is what partakes of the lastingness of God-in-love, that resilient persistence implicit in the deep desire, from the beginning of the universe, of God-in-love toward the beloved Other.

Likewise, our deeds of hospitality, friendship and exploration, however well any venture succeeds, are each individual and imperishable, and each uniquely expressive of us. Whatever arises and grows in any occasion of the on-going, multifaceted, Other-seeking encounter of God-in-love and the beloved Other can look forward to its consummation in the world yet to come. Whatever does not can look forward to non-existence. Lastingness is not a matter of believing but of having live 2^nd person encounters.

To dare and to do are always rewarded, if not immediately, then finally. There is no ultimate cost for trying; the attempt itself is our participation in the world to come. What that may be like is, as yet, beyond imagination, but worth wanting.

8. Practices

Hospitality relates to situations where the Other is a stranger, a guest, a minority, not the norm, not prevalent, not calling the shots. Expressions of hospitality can include teaching, nursing, healing, hosting, feeding, lending, gifting, advising, protecting, sponsoring, helping, listening, inviting, encouraging, allowing, introducing, provisioning, guiding, maintaining, and nurturing, among others. Hospitality helps things come to life and have places to live.

Exploration approaches the Other from a different angle. When exploring, we are the outsiders, the visitors, the aliens in an Other's world, unfamiliar with how and why things happen as they do. Expressions of exploration can include experimenting, entrepreneuring, launching, investigating, learning, noticing, researching, designing, creating, resuming, wandering, meditating, wondering, hypothesizing, building, repurposing, and querying, among others. Exploration is a curiosity about the Other but also about ourselves in the Other's presence.

Friendship involves both hospitality and exploration with the additional sense of particular attraction of each one for the Other, a longing for and delight in the Other's sheer presence, a love of side-by-side looking out and side-long looking at. Expressions of friendship include companioning, visiting, conversing, celebrating, empathizing, grieving, appreciating, sharing, standing up for, playing together, being candid, standing in for, stimulating, being honest, refreshing, reconciling, resolving and honoring, among others. Second person consciousness tends to friendship.

These active practices are not mutually exclusive, nor directed only to persons, organisms or organizations. We can have 2^nd person encounters with anything that exhibits its own potentiality, energy or power; the key is openness to Otherness.

9. Trouble

Apart from the complexity implicit in any encounter, there are the inevitable perplexities that multiple, varied encounters bring to our lives. As doers, we necessarily confront dilemmas and heart-wrenching choices, feel divided loyalties, and inevitably make mistakes, lots of them: expect guilt. As those who are done-to, we experience pain, loss, death, all that is agonizing and terrible in human existence: expect grief.

Both complexity as an aspect of being and 2^nd person consciousness as a mode of becoming have been trouble right from the beginning; God-in-love accepts blame for that. Hospitality, friendship and exploration widely practiced and over time can and have made some things better but perfection is an aspiration, not a prospect that applies to the world, nor to God-in-love. We have to choose but, in doing so, continually risk, and regularly suffer, regret and remorse.

Are there any consolations for our grief and guilt if omnipotence and omniscience are off the table and the pain and fear we experience are immediate and compelling? We want remedy and relief right away---and deservedly so.

10. Grief

We may feel alone or abandoned but in our 2^nd person consciousness God-in-love is always addressing us as 'You,' engaging with us as we are and where we are, and suffering as a result. Through that same consciousness, God-in-love moves other people to offer words, gestures, and practical assistance to help ease our anguish. Fundamental isolation is not the deepest truth of our existence. What we suffer, even in extremis, is undergone by God-in-love as any lover suffers along with a beloved, not coolly or hypothetically, but piercingly, achingly. 

The meaninglessness of suffering is an extension of the suffering itself, and to relieve it we look for morals that offer justification or compensation. That’s a bitter task and God-in-love does not engage in it. Rather, the question of meaning is dealt with in terms of the love relationship of God-in-love and the Beloved, which, here and now, we perceive obscurely in our 2^nd person encounters but will see more and more clearly in the world yet to come.

None of our readiness to dare nor our deeds in 2^nd person mode are ever lost or disappear--not even our being born, not the briefest aha! of Other perception. Cumulatively and lastingly, these constitute the very face of the Beloved and are the stuff of the world to come. As with every aspect of our lives, our suffering, endured by God-in-love as the suffering of the Beloved, is not obliterated nor discounted, but integrated into that relationship.

11. Guilt

What about guilt, ours and the guilt of other people? The world and courts actively and inevitably mete out consequences and punishments, but not, of course, always fairly. As far as God-in-love is concerned, justice works this way: what participates in the livingness of 2^nd person encounters will last and what doesn't, won't.

In our 2^nd person encounters, there are necessarily occasions when we do what we don't want to do, or feel comfortable doing; when we feel we are doing something wrong, or mistaken, or inadequate; and we feel guilt as result. Indeed the absence of such reluctancies and resistances, and the unease associated with them, may suggest we're sticking too closely to what comforts and confirms us, and not really exposing ourselves enough to the risks inherent in engaging with Otherness.

If we don't sometimes open ourselves to discomfort, loss and failure, even guilt, how can we grow? what do we have to offer? what can we look for? We can train ourselves to suppress –it takes concentration and effort though it gets easier with practice--our 2^nd person consciousness entirely, but in the end, those who train themselves so have literally nothing to show for it.

On the other hand, since there is no penalty for trying and our worst 'scores' are dropped, we are free to be bold. Our failures and inadequacies, even our sometimes kicking back at having to be brave or nice or anything 2^nd person, all are part of the on-going romantic interchange of God-in-love and the Beloved.

We inevitably die and are even sometimes done in, so too, conversations die, are even sometimes killed, but the cosmic conversation between God-in-love and the Beloved continues moving like a space-filling curve to the farthest edges and into the tightest corners of the possible. Our darings and deeds toward sustaining the livingness of that everlasting colloquy are incorporated into it and ever living within it. This is the ultimate consolation of our grief and guilt.

12. Objections & Opportunities

'God-in-love', this mythic speculation, this working model, is not to replace any system of logic or tradition or philosophy or experience, but to offer a space wherein many ideas can coexist.

There are many possible, legitimate objections to God-in-love. For instance, those who stand on sacred traditions can fault the idea for ignoring essential stories and teachings; the philosophical might argue that the idea does not derive from first principles; the scientific might say that it posits a superfluous entity, the existence of which cannot be confirmed by any test; post-moderns can criticize God-in-love as an objective something, not a subjective anything.

My own doubts derive from just how neat and attractive this ultimate concept seems to me. It may be too good to be true; my own satisfaction with it may be evidence of my susceptibility to delusion. Increasingly, however, thinking as if God-in-love is in fact the case proves more interesting and gratifying than I’d expected and has inspired many opportunities for learning and for doing new things. It keeps me growing and it keeps me expectant. That's worth a lot.

What if people actually entertain the 'God-in-love' concept, actually live the presence/adventure/lastingness way of life based on it? How might they and the world benefit? First, they can collaborate on projects of hospitality, friendship and exploration, thus perhaps increasing the scale and effectiveness of these practices. Second, they can encourage each other, teach and learn from each other, appreciate each other. Third, by their collective presence and conviction, they can offer the world an alternative and positive view of the meaning of human existence and the potentiality of the human future.

13. Signs

Looking inward: We become aware of the presence of an Other when we find ourselves having certain reactions to something or somebody. Positively, we may feel ourselves being intrigued (on a curious > captured continuum) or being impressed (on an admiration > awe continuum) or, negatively, feeling lost in the presence of something or somebody (on a discomfort > disorientation continuum) or experiencing dismay (on a disquiet > distress continuum).

Looking outward: We may notice, especially when we practice friendship, exploration or hospitality, things or people exercising powers, expending energies, or exploiting potentialities (that is, actualizing latent possibilities), and so expressing their own livingness; 2^nd person encounters are possible with any such.

Powers being exercised: something or someone which...a. allows, authorizes, charters...; b. forbids, restricts, enforces...; c. helps, funds, advises...; d. hinders, obstructs, encumbers...; e. encourages, stimulates, rewards...; f. discourages, suppresses, penalizes; g. forces, initiates, insists...; h. forebears, is patient, waits.

Energies being expended: something or someone which is...a. struggling, striving, stressed, teetering...; b. messaging, signaling, signifying, tacitly coordinating...; c. mobilizing, preparing, poised, pending...; d. concentrating, gathering, persisting, strategically positioning...; e. changing its position, rate or direction; f. changing its status or form; g. changing its composition or constituents; h. beginning or ending.

Potentialities being exploited: something or somebody which undergoes...a. an enhancement or extension or a deterioration or shrinkage; b. a shift in the equilibrium or internal distribution; c. a becoming-decisive; d. a development of irregularities, exceptions, oddities, glitches; e. an out-of-the-blue arrival; f. a concealment or exposure; g. a meeting or joining or a missing or separating; h. complexification or simplification.

14. Token & Tool

An ordinary die can be a token, indicating God-in-love, or a tool for inspiring our daily lives.

As a token, carried perhaps in purse or pocket:

1. The various outcomes of a thrown die remind us of the element of unpredictability inherent in this complex world within which and by which the wooing of God-in-love and the Beloved is going forward.

2. The numbers remind us of ways to discover and respond to Others:

                1. Power (a decision point),

2. Friendship (a meeting),

3. Energy (a trajectory),

4. Exploration (a compass),

5. Potentiality (a burst),

6. Hospitality (a table).

3. The cube itself can stand for the contribution a single 'brick', one 2^nd person encounter, makes to the world being built by God-in-love and the beloved Other together.

As a tool for reflecting and risking:

1. Pray the introduction of the God-in-love prayer.

2. Call to mind some 2^nd person encounter (of one or several episodes); identify the Other(s); consider the arisings, arrivings, or deviatings that made it possible; appreciate its history of richness:

how vivid the recognitions (otherness!),

how potent the acknowledgments (this Other!),

how urgent the addressings (You!),

how suspenseful the anticipations (We!), as well as

how intriguing (what is yet to be encountered, exposed, examined),

how impressive (that the encounter was-what it was-for us).

3. Pray the middle part of the prayer.

4. Roll the die; if 1 or 2, try some act of friendship (Be particularly alert to powers being exercised); if 3 or 4, dare some act of exploration (Look out for energies being expended); if 5 or 6, hazard some act of hospitality (Watch for potentialities being exploited).

5. Pray the final section of the prayer.

A prayer I pray:

God-in-love,

present wherever I, or any,

open to your energy, potentiality and power:

You made making;

you introduced doing;

you are Other, yet lover.*

Let the consummation of your creation

swiftly approach, soon arrive:

that new and lively cosmos

of infinite hospitality, friendship and exploration,

of change without transience,

time without the past,

life without death,

your dwelling in the midst.

Give us what we need to live today.

Forgive us when we do

what doesn't honor you,

as we forgive those

who dismiss, despise or disappoint us.

Send timely help

when we're tested or attacked.*

Yes! to the invitation you give

to share your everlasting livingness.

Everything you do, everything you are,

how impressive, how intriguing,

each day, every day, forever.