"Investments in Trust"
by Rev. Kimi Riegel
October 20, 2002

Spoken Meditation: 'Abou Ben Adhem'

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel writing in a book of gold:

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow men."

The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest![1]

       -- James Leigh Hunt

Sermon: Investments in Trust

You’ve heard it said that some things are guy things and some things are woman things – life is a relationship thing. Everything we are and can be is encapsulated in our relationships. The people we are, is made manifest in the way we are with one another.  The people we can become is to a large part dependent on the quality of our relationships. As Emerson said, “as we associate so we become.”  To become better people we must necessarily become better with one another.

Ram Dass, author of “Be Here Now,” writes,

What I am saying is that this [moment] is part of my work on myself because I realize that the only thing you have to offer to another human being, ever, is your own state of being.  You can cop out only just so long, saying I’ve got all this, I know all this and I can do all this. But everything you do whether you’re cooking food or doing therapy or being a student or being a lover, you are only doing your own being, you’re only manifesting how evolved a consciousness you are. That’s what you’re doing with another human being, that’s the only dance there is![2]

If what we are doing with another human beings is making visible what we are, if all there is to this life are the relationships we have, then it makes sense to spend some time in this worship space considering both what we gain from quality relationships and what makes a relationship quality. After all, religion is about what ultimately concerns us, to steal an idea from Paul Tilllich.

But it’s not just 70’s, LSD influenced gurus that have suggested that relationships are what is essential about life.  Two prominent theologians from the early 20^th Century have suggested the same thing.  Both Henry Nelson Weiman (1884-1975), a Unitarian, and Martin Buber (1878-1965), a Jewish theologian, place God, or our “Ultimate Concern,” in relationships.

For Buber, relationships with other human beings are at their best when they are in what he called an I-Thou relationship.  Buber’s notion of I-Thou can be hard to understand.  You may want to think of it in more Unitarian terms.  For instance, Emerson spoke of the notion of a divine seed in all of us. Emerson believed God, or the divine, to be manifest in the diversity of life – thus all life has a divine core. So, when translated into Emersonian language, Buber’s I-Thou means that when we recognize the divine seed in each person, when that divine seed connects to another’s, we are in an I-Thou relationship. So at coffee hour, at the grocery store, in traffic – each and every person we encounter is part of the divine, a person with worth and dignity.

A contrast might be helpful; from Buber’s perspective, if you are not in an I-Thou relationship, you are in an I-It relationship.  This is when we fail to recognize the divine seed in one another and treat one another merely as objects.  Buber believed that human existence that treats others as an object – not affecting or affected by the other, is an empty and confusing existence. If we see the world in an I-It way, in other words only through our own experiences, we miss what is essential in life.  In the I-It relationship there is no connection, no interaction, no recognition that we share the same essence. Professor Michael Connelly gives the clearest and simplest explanation I have ever found of Buber.  Professor Connelly writes,

We experience most things as just that - things. They do not respond to our perception, they are not changed by it. Buber would say we experience them as objects - as It. There is no relation between observer and observed - no connection. The experience is totally in the observer and not it that which is observed. Fundamentally, we experience the other as an It. [3] 

Some examples of I-It relationships might be two people in an argument who are no longer hearing each other, a teacher in a classroom of third-graders where the curriculum has become the driving force, a family that has shut out a child who is gay, or long time community grudges built on old political differences.  In each of these cases the relationships is not connected and neither party is changed by interaction with the other. Buber observed that the I-It relationship was not all there is to our lives.

Professor Connelly continues,

“We reach a new level of awareness when we approach the other as a Thou - as a relational being. The Thou is changed by my awareness of it in that it responds to my awareness - and thus establishes a connection between the I and the Thou. Consider a human relationship, which has progressed to a deep level of understanding. To the persons in the relationship, they are aware of the other as a Thou - a being apart from the I, yet also a part of the I.[4]

Another image that comes to mind is the ying/yang image, in which each recognizes that a part of the other is a part of itself.  Does your group know ying/yang well enough for you to use this reference?]

In just these few ideas Buber has laid out all that is necessary for quality relationships:

1.   We must recognize the other as Thou, as divine, as one who has worth and dignity.

2.   Those relationships that are quality will change as that is the nature of I-Thou, each has an effect on the other. Thus I-Thou relationships are always shifting.

Let us take each of these in turn.

First we must recognize the other as Thou, as divine, as one who has worth and dignity. Buber wrote, “The greatest thing we can do for another is to confirm what is deepest”[5] “The greatest thing we can do for another is to confirm what is deepest” What a gift we give to ourselves and to others when we are conscious in each interaction that the one we are interacting with is as deep and loving a person as we are. Each interaction then contains acknowledgment of that which lies deep inside of us; love, needs, sadness, loneliness, fear, desire, expectations, and the divine. And each interaction is about full acknowledgment of that same within the other.

So back to coffee hour as an example; can you imagine greeting each person you speak to with “Namaste”? How would that change the interaction?  It might make for   fewer quick conversations, as recognizing the other person has worth and dignity takes time.  It would mean we had eye contact and deeply listening to one another before placing our own agenda on the table. My guess is this awareness may make today’s coffee hour a bit strange but the potential for a higher level of fulfillment is great!  

And while coffee hour is a significant part of this community, there are other ways I-Thou relationships could have an impact on all of life. For instance, Martin Luther King, Jr. used the I-It and I-Thou distinction in his letter from the Birmingham Jail to define segregation. He wrote,  "Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things.”[7]  What about our current international relations?  What if the Iraqis were seen as having a divine seed? How would that change our responses to them? What about in you marriage?  Your relationships with your children or parents?  How would your world be different if those you encountered were greeted with a bow of acknowledging their divine seed?

Thus we come to the second point. Those relationships that are quality will change, as that is the nature of I-Thou relationships - as in an I-Thou relationships each person has an effect on the other. We will all be changed by the acknowledgment of what is divine within us; further deepening the interaction. The relationship then continues as an I-Thou relationship, one that deepens all our interactions.   I-Thou relationships are always shifting. This is not easy (as if the first point was).  Change is tough and change in our most intimate and connected relationships is frightening.  Yet according to Buber it is all a package. We can’t have the I-Thou without affecting each other.  Once affected we change.   Thus the relationship shifts.

This is where Henry Nelson Weiman, the Unitarian theologian, comes in. Weiman wrote, “at this deeper level of commitment, one is motivated by the intention to give himself, in the wholeness of his being so far as he is able, to what in truth does save and transform, no matter how different it may be from one's ideas about it.”[8]  Weiman believed we are saved or transformed by the creative interchange that takes place between humans.  That interchange happens only in the I-Thou relationships.  We grow and develop through our relationships.  We avoid stagnation and insignificance by engaging in I-Thou relationships that by their very nature create change. If we place our trust in the creative interchange we will become more real like the Rabbit in the children’s story this morning.

But as Ann Morrow Lindbergh writes in her book Gifts from the Sea,

We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.  We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb.  We are afraid it will never return.  We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity, in freedom.[9]  

So while we know that creative relationships transform us we fear that transformation, we fear the change.  But perhaps if we can know and understand that we will be transformed, and if we understand that transformation as part of quality relationships, we can be more willing to trust the process of engagement in I-Thou relationships.

A Unitarian Universalist colleague, Rev. Christine Brownlie writes, “Henry Nelson Weiman, described mutuality (Buber’s I-Thou) as a way of relating where each individual is able to share the thoughts and feeling of the other and to know that his or her feelings and thoughts are regarded and valued by others. Such mutual awareness and responsiveness are essential, for out of them emerge real transformation of the individuals involved, raising each person to a higher level of human fulfillment. This means that we can’t reach our fullest potential entirely on our own. We need to share our ideas, conclusions, opinions, and thoughts with other people who will do the same. Together, as we explore our differences, as we affirm each other, we come to a deeper relationship. Again, this requires time, effort, patience, a willingness to take risks.”[10]

So it comes full circle we make a choice to offer our best selves, our deepest selves because we know that each human being has a seed of the divine with which to connect and from that connection we will grow into our greatest fulfillment and reach our potential as individuals and as a community.

This is where the title of the sermon, Investments in Trust, finally makes an appearance.  We must above all else trust.  It is investment in trusting the process, trusting each other and trusting ourselves that will allow the I-Thou connection.  We manifest our trust in ourselves, in the other and in life when we make choices about how and when to enter into relation that is quality, a relation that is mutual, and one that affirms what is deepest in the other.  These trusting relationships will make us stronger better people.

There is of course an essential place for forgiveness but that is another sermon.  May your days be filled with the trust that allows you to trust yourself and thus your fellow human and enter into I-Thou relationships.