16 February 2006

Today we go a bit deeper into the notion of "othering" with Walter Brueggemann.

I suggest that "spirituality" is the enterprise of coming to terms with this other in a way that is neither excessively submissive nor excessively resistant. Such coming to terms is obviously no small matter. For this other is an endless threat to our safety and our integrity. This Thou always undermines whom we have chosen to be. The presence of the other always reminds us that we are addressed, unsettled, unfinished, underway, not fully whom we intend or pretend to be. For that reason, so much of life consists in fending off this life-threatening, life-giving otherness, for the other evokes in us terrible fears - phobias, we call them.

When you think about it, the one power available to us from this "other"...this "Thou" is the capacity to love. The power of those who differ coming together to bridge the gap between them in a dialogical manner that is just and merciful and respectful is frightening. It means we must not attempt to control the world around us...for it is not ours to control. We run away from this power of love (the power that reunites the separated) for it demands that our lives enter into a process of transformation that will no allow us to stay just as we are. When the other is God or another person or even the other that is in me, it is the voice that continues to invite us to dream and imagine and then...leap. I like it that Brueggemann reminds us that this other...and I would also say the power of love...is unsettling...it exposes us...it reminds us of the journey that we have yet to enter...it has the audacity to suggest that we are not who we "intend or pretend to be." That is a disarming voice to hear. Therefore, we often make noises within our lives to keep the voice of the other silent...unless, of course, that voice is nothing more than an echo of our own voice. That is a self-absorbed love that is really no love at all...and even fears the true power of love.

Connection: Today is another day within the marvelous unfolding of our relationships as they pull us beyond our turned-in-on-selves and into the gracious realm of the people who live in, with, and under the otherness of our world.

Speak to us, O God, that we will see our limits and our brokenness and yet be made bold to stretch beyond them into relationships that begin to make us all whole and well and a part of your power to reunite all things into a fine fabric of your love. Amen.