Focus is on Martin Buber's I and Thou in relation to violence on the personal level.
1. Meditation
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pQaUNPS8zkI&t=46s
2. Song
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Icytvqn8h3o
3. Narrative
Friday, May 6th, 2022
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations
From the Center for Action and Contemplation
Week Eighteen: The Spiral of Violence
Violence Begins with the Personal
The basic I-You can be spoken only with one’s whole being. . . . I require a You to become; becoming I, I say You. All actual life is encounter.
—Martin Buber, I and Thou
Theologian Pamela Cooper-White has thought deeply about gender and sexual violence, and believes that at its heart, violence is a failure to see the other person as a person.
Violence against women is connected to all other forms of violence, just as all living beings are, in reality and in spite of our forgetfulness or callous indifference, interconnected. We are confronted daily with the many forms of violence in our world. We often end up feeling that our powers are fragmented, as one worthy cause after another is lifted up. . . . What is needed is a way for understanding how, from a personal and holistic perspective, all violence is one.
All violence begins with the personal, with the I, and with a point of decision, a crossing of a line, where each of us chooses momentarily to view another living being as an It rather than a Thou. The ultimate purpose of each act of violence, each reduction of another person from a Thou to an It, is to control the other. . . . Our choices matter, even on what seems like a small scale. They have resonance in the universe. When we truly see another person or living being as a Thou, we cannot dominate or control them. We then must enter into a different kind of covenant, where power is shared. This is the “universal reciprocity” that Buber recognized as mysterious, connected with the divine. . . .
The I-Thou relationship is not simply an attitude of love toward others—although it is that—but also actions of making connections and actively working for justice. . . . The gospel message that is the great ethic of our faith is that we do reach out across borders and across cultures, both within the United States and abroad, and we honor the millions of Thous of every race and creed whom we recognize as our brothers and sisters throughout our neighborhoods and throughout the world. [1]
For Father Richard, Jesus becomes a person so that we, too, can receive and pass on the divine gaze of love:
The intimacy of what Martin Buber called an “I-Thou” relationship is a deep and loving “yes” to God, to others, and to the life that is inherent within each of us. When the face of the other (especially the suffering face) is received and empathized with, it leads to transformation of our whole being. It creates a moral demand on our heart that is far more compelling than laws. Just giving people commandments doesn’t change the heart. It may steel the will, but it doesn’t soften the heart like an I-Thou encounter can. Many of the Christian mystics talk about seeing the divine face or falling in love with the face of Jesus. Love is the gaze that does us in! [2]
[1] Pamela Cooper-White, The Cry of Tamar: Violence against Women and the Church’s Response, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 42–43, 45.
[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2012). Available as CD and MP3 download.
4. Prayer
Loving God, fill my heart with the love that you freely give. Make love my first and last thoughts. May I love others and freely give to them. Make my spirit a spirit of joy, happiness, and love for both my friends and my enemies. Help me love as abundantly as you have loved me. Amen.
5. Meditation
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