The Face Of The Other

I particularly enjoyed David Benner’s chapter “Otherness” while reading his book, Soulful Spirituality: Becoming Fully Alive and Deeply Human. Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

Soulful spirituality invites us to do a better job of recognizing and prizing the otherness of others rather than simply seeing them as extensions of ourselves or using them as containers for our own projections.

This is what Jewish philosopher Martin Buber had in mind when he distinguished between “I-Thou” and “I-it” relationships. We relate to someone as a Thou when we welcome their otherness and treat them as sacred. The relationship can then be subject to subject, or personal.

In contrast, we treat another as an it whenever we engage with them as an object. But to do so, even when done with professional benevolence, is to dehumanize the other by offering them an impersonal relationship.

Truly personal relationships demand that we engage the other as a Thou—embracing their otherness and their humanity and in so doing helping both to flourish.

According to Buber, all real living exists in meeting another as a Thou.

Emmanuel Lewis makes this point by suggesting that the face of the other always bears the trace of God.

Honoring the otherness of other people is honoring the face of the Divine that they reflect.