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
- 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.
- 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.
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.
- 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
2nd
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 2nd 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 2nd
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 2nd
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.
- Perspectives
Our
words and deeds are shaped by the particular perspectives we have at
any moment on ourselves and our world.
The
3rd
person he, she, it perspective addresses tasks and seeks success; its engagements are of utility. The 1st
person I perspective
addresses the self and seeks satisfaction; its engagements are of soliloquy. The 2nd
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
2nd
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.
- 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 2nd
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 2nd
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.
- What ensues is adventure...
There's
no adventure without risks or potential rewards; in encounters with
any Other, there is opportunity for both. The 2nd
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 2nd
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.
- What results is lastingness...
Our
readiness, moment by moment, situation by situation, to honestly dare
2nd
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 2nd
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.
- 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 2nd
person encounters with anything that exhibits its own potentiality,
energy or power; the key is openness to Otherness.
- 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 2nd
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.
- Grief
We
may feel alone or abandoned but in our 2nd 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 2nd
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 2nd
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.
- 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 2nd person encounters will last and what doesn't, won't.
In our 2nd 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.
In our 2nd 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 2nd
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 2nd
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.
- 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.
- 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; 2nd
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.
- 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
2nd
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 2nd 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.
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