tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post8069326408335412299..comments2024-03-28T11:33:16.271-05:00Comments on Adventus: "A Wandering Aramean Was My Father...."Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-75935160224689832052018-04-20T17:17:02.617-05:002018-04-20T17:17:02.617-05:00"I and Thou" is not an easy read. I nee..."I and Thou" is not an easy read. I need to get my copy out now, and start it over again (I never finished it).<br /><br />Thanks. My reading needed a purpose. If I had better direction, I'd offer it, but my reading is always led more by the wild goose than by a wise guide.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-3545717857599496192018-04-20T14:52:45.860-05:002018-04-20T14:52:45.860-05:00It comes back again to one on one ministry. David...It comes back again to one on one ministry. David Williams of the Baptist church in the article is engaged in ministry, softening our hearts of stone. I come more and more to believe that what truly changes us is the one on one interaction, the human face, the human voice. <br /><br />A while ago I read this book review on Martin Buber (I confess to having never heard of him before) https://aeon.co/essays/all-real-living-is-meeting-the-sacred-love-of-martin-buber This part of the review stood out:<br /><br />"The basic argument of I and Thou goes like this: human existence is fundamentally interpersonal. Human beings are not isolated, free-floating objects, but subjects existing in perpetual, multiple, shifting relationships with other people, the world, and ultimately God. Life is defined by these myriad interactions – by the push and pull of intersubjectivity. This conception ties to Buber’s belief in the primacy of the spoken word." and "By contrast, in the I-Thou relationship, rather than simply experiencing another, we encounter them. A subject encounters a fellow subject’s whole being, and that being is not filtered through our mediated consciousness, with its litter of preconceptions and projections. ‘No purpose intervenes,’ as Buber put it. The I-Thou stance has a purity and an intimacy, and is inherently reciprocal."<br /><br />On the 50th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, the best tributes presented him in his own speeches and sermons (thank you for your posting on that day). I read the posts here, but also his last speech in its entirety posted elsewhere. Having this I-Thou floating around in my head, I came to this from Dr. King's last address:<br /><br />"Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base.... Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side.<br /><br />They didn’t stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the “I” into the “thou,” and to be concerned about his brother."<br /><br />As I continue to work this over in my thoughts, for which I feel often very slow, I am pulled more and more into the need for that personal interaction, those face to face acts of love. <br /><br />Now I need to go actually read Bruber's "I and Thou" (though my understanding is that it's a difficult go), more Dr. King, and if you have related suggestions they will be gratefully accepted. <br />rustypickuphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17861692872132066016noreply@blogger.com