The Face of the Other

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"Buber makes the I-Thou encounter the essence of reality, and says ‘all real living is meeting.’ Emmanuel Levinas says that we are not converted by ideas but ‘the face of the other.’

…(e)very time you pray, it’s God in you telling you to pray. You wouldn’t even desire to pray except for God in you…Every time you choose God on some level, God has in the previous nanosecond just chosen you, and you have somehow allowed yourself to be chosen—and responded back! (John 15:16).

We don’t know how to say yes by ourselves. We just ‘second the motion’! …God first says ‘yes’ inside us and we say, ‘Oh yeah,’ thinking it comes from us! In other words, God rewards us for letting God reward us."

-Richard Rohr, Things Hidden