I-Thou

 That word, Thou, traveled a long way in my head from another four-letter word with three of the same letters, namely Thug. But enough about his nothingness.

Martin Buber’s 1923 book, I and Thou, sums up what has vanished during these times that try men's souls. The I / Thou relationship elaborated by Buber describes a meeting of intimacy of subject with subject. That word, Thou, takes on a sacred meaning not necessarily in a theological sense, at least in my mind, but in reference to what is in the process of fully tending to the other, the soulfulness of human beings. The Other could be someone close or even a brief encounter with a stranger. It could even be a work of art, a tree or the still-life of a breakfast table … which we relate to in the full presence of our being.

When two people are met there is a third entity born, they have a thing. An alignment, a tacit knowing between them beyond words, a human bond however transient or enduring it may be. When it's there you know it and when it is violated you know that too as when a thug lives on flattery and fealty. When he distances, with insults and ridicule, any who do not bend to his will. 

Let it begin with me, as the song goes. This is what I see as a consciousness with which to go forward. To a certain extent we really are the world, not as it is but as we can repair and remake it. 

If we lived in Gaza or Kiev, daily life would insinuate itself as a matter of survival. By virtue of the cosmic crapshoot which landed us a continent away with an ocean between,

we have only to deal with this assault on decency and dissent. No small thing but not quite existential. 

Life gives us moments, as the poet says, and from these moments we make a life. Many such moments are lost to us in the shadow of perceived walls. More I-Thou ways of being can be perforations of light to get us through the next four years.