Connection

Aside from any religion, faith, or philosophy, education or lack thereof- despite any socioeconomic or ethnic differences- regardless of country or geographic location- not caring about personal likes, dislikes, weight, age or any other perceived differences- the time has come for us to come together. We need to open dialog, and we need to get to know each other. We need to be present with each other!

I don't even care if you disagree with me, we still need to come together!

The world can be a harsh, cold, and impersonal place. It didn't start out that way, and here's a secret-- it doesn't have to stay that way for you if you don't want to live like that!

"That sounds great. What does it cost?"

Well, for some the price may seem too high...

"Cut to the chase-- how much will it cost me?"

Only your bias, your pre-conceived ideas.

In 'I and Thou' Martin Buber says,

"Insofar as a human being makes do with the things that he experiences and uses, he lives in the past, and his moment has no presence. He has nothing but objects; but objects consist in having been.
Presence is not what is evanescent and passes but what confronts us, waiting and enduring...
What is essential is lived in the present, objects in the past."

What he means by objects in the past is pre-conceived ideas. Judgments. Have you ever met someone and gotten the impression that they had already made up their mind about you? That's what Martin Buber was talking about-- being objectified, summed up and pigeon-holed into a category. It's not being present.

This being treated like an 'It' is one of two ways that we humans interact with our world. The other is to instead intimately interact as equals, as a 'You'.

I really like how Martin Buber treats being present in the intimate interpersonal:

"This is no metaphor but actuality: love does not cling to an I, as if the You were merely its 'content' or object; it is between I and You... Love is a cosmic force. For those who stand in it and behold in it, men emerge from their entanglement in busy-ness; and the good and the evil, the clever and the foolish, the beautiful and the ugly, one after another become actual and a You for them; that is, liberated, emerging into a unique confrontation. Exclusiveness comes into being miraculously again and again-- and now one can act, help, heal, educate, raise, redeem. Love is responsibility of an I for a You: in this consists what cannot consist in any feeling-- the equality of all lovers, from the smallest to the greatest and from the blissfully secure whose life is circumscribed by the life of one beloved human being to him that is nailed his life long to the cross of the world, capable of what is immense and bold enough to risk it: to love man."

We either find a connection with others, or we end up treating them as objects. One or the other. Take your pick.

I think we are already connected, all of us, and that pointing out this connection was a major part of Jesus' ministry.

John 15:1,2 says:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every [branch] that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

First impulse is to read this with attention to the main meaning-- the branches that are removed. But there is also something else here-- It sounds like all of us do have a connection! (True, a parable is an analogy and we don't want to over-examine it and end up making false assumptions.)

Mal 2:10 says we all have one source:

"Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?"

There is the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13:24. Note that all are in the same field, and not separated from each other!

Act 10:34 says God looks at us equally:

"Then Peter opened [his] mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him."

Some might think that Matthew 10:34 could rebut any talk of togetherness:

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes [shall be] they of his own household.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

As you can see, Jesus was not saying that he brings a sword. He obviously meant that we would have troubles in this life from persecution.

LIKE... MINI TRINITIES?
Probably because Buber's 'I and Thou' has been on my mind, I had an idea yesterday about the sacred spirit of the relationship. It is complete conjecture on my part, so it may or may not have merit.

I have heard of the Trinity described this way-- There is God the father, and Christ, the son. The relationship between the father and the son is the Holy Spirit.

If that is the case, then when we have relationships we make miniature trinities all the time!

God and I, and our relationship make a mini-trinity.

You and I, and our relationship make a mini-trinity.

Jesus did say something not the same, but similar in Matthew 18:20:

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

If this is true, that there is a sacred spirit of our relationship, then what would it mean to grieve the spirit (in this connotation)?

Ephesians 4:30-

"And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

If we all are branches off of the one true vine, and so have a connection to God and to each other, perhaps in these smaller, trinity-like bonds of relationship, 'grieving the spirit' would be to ignore the connection, to instead show bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking, or malice.

Maybe how to foster good, sacred bonds with others is to "be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

That is why we turn the other cheek. That is why we love our neighbor as ourselves!

Remember-- I'm not talking about just having relationships with like-minded people. That's too easy.

We have a good quality, sacred, connection right now to every other human being on the planet. It just needs to be remembered, reawakened, and enlivened!