I in You and You in Me

Some philosophers say our encounter with the world starts with the self, out to an other, and back again to the self. This is inadequate. Like gestation, “I in You and You in me”, our encounter with the world is relational. The encounter of I with you in the present moment is a glimpse of the eternal You found in the face of another person. The You could never be an “It.”*

But when someone you love reduces you, a wholehearted being, a child, to an “It” for their own selfish pleasure or gratification, it messes with your sense of self. Against your will, this “It” moment gestates within you, and it can make you crazy. Even trying to forgive doesn’t take it away. The “It” moment is within you and you can never be the person you were before they acted on you.

Some people replay the moment, doing to others what was done to them - just in new ways. Others struggle with their own power-and-powerless-ness. Mania and suicidal ideation may be symptoms of an inability to make peace with the monstrosity done to you, now within you, now a part of you.

When you encounter a person or a group of people who treat you as an “It,” especially when they are someone who you loved or admired, this can gestate inside you as agony.

But, when you and I encounter one another in the present moment as in relation with the infinite within the finite (ie. in a person’s face), there will be authentic gratification, healing, and of course, love.

* See Martin Buber's I and Thou

Receiving a Cup of Tea

Content Warning (CW): cis woman writing about another person, gender unknown - forgive my presumptions. Violence and harm come from obsessions with gendered physicality. I meant to write a love letter, not pour salt in a wound.


Be still my soul, what captivating eyes! The barista is simply doing their job at the register: taking cash, giving change, handing me tea. But, their eyes smile with a sweet kindness that makes me want to know more. Their hair looks like it's growing longer, pulled back in a ponytail, with remnants of a short boy-cut lingering. They look sensual with the straps of their white and black striped tank top showing from beneath the swoop neck of a tight black T. I don't like that I notice their breasts. They look nice. Am I objectifying? (I, who hate my breasts to be objectified.) A 5 o'clock shadow frames their cheekbones. Am I categorizing? (I, who hate to be categorized!)

They are efficient and friendly. Their eyes, captivating. I want to be friends. But, if we were to become friends, I would need them to forgive me for observing physicality without knowing anything about their person or their story. I want to be safe, and I'm out of my league. My "safeness" is normally assumed by the people I want to be friends with. My cis-ness is, too. I wouldn't blame this bright eyed handsome beauty for being wary. I would want to prove myself as safe, knowing that I'm not as safe as they deserve. I think about all these things when they smile at me again in that friendly and self-assured way that they have about them. My over-analysis and swirling thoughts go silent when I hear their voice.

"I would let the tea steep for a little while before you drink it," they say.

"Thanks," I say, feeling the warmth of the tea already.

And now that I'm writing about this person, I have this urge to let them be for a little while, to watch them become who they are becoming. Then I remember their captivating eyes. I realize they are all and everything they should ever be right now. And I'm drinking them up.


Post-script: A gender fluid friend posted this recently after describing violent aggressions towards their body: "...I totally feel why folks just wanna present binary/stealth (no judgement, for real, I get it). You can pry the fabulous off my cold, dead body, though. I will be silenced/bullied/cowed by nothing less.  Bury me in all my tutus, mom, and don't forget the gender fucked accessories."

The Day After the Birth of My Nephew

I am bound by my love for my children and even love for my husband. He can use that chain of iron, links forged in the fire of duty, love, obligation, expectation and commitment. He can pull that chain when he tells me desperately, “I need…!” and like a dog on a leash, I may resist and pull, but eventually I will give in and go in his direction. I’ve been trained by society since birth. We had a disagreement and, tonight, I feel more like a socially constructed woman than I’ve ever felt. And it is social construction that binds me to his whim. “I submit!” And I don’t know who I am anymore.

Yet, yesterday, I witnessed firsthand the raw, awesome, sublime power of a physically constructed woman. I saw her body transform before my very eyes. I saw her breath and her eyes and her jaw set strong against wave after wave of pure bodily force as she brought a human being into this world. She was the breath of life moving through the dust of the earth. Every breath is what mattered. Every breath took her through each mind-body expanding contraction. Our brains are always surprised at this – at what the dust of the earth can do to our breath in labor. But, by breathing through it, these cells, these organs, and the miraculous human life inside her were all subdued. They submitted to her and worked with her. For all of her – her breath, her mind, her will, her body, and the new life coming forth – all had the same purpose, all were one as the truest physical embodiment of a labor of love.

She stood on the precipice of death and life. She stared at death as she said, “Yes,” when the doctor said they wanted to plunge a knife into her body to extract her child. She stared at death as she pushed out her child and thought that maybe the monitors had something significant to say, that maybe her child was dead. She breathed and became the essence of life as she got on top of each contraction, each mind-altering surge of pain as she said, “I am,” to the forces that would tear her body apart or smother her baby.

The doctor said, “C-section. Stop pushing.” And she felt her body surge in the way it does, telling us the baby also whispers, “I am,” and we agree. She agreed. She pushed with all her might. And with the sudden release of pressure, the emptying out of the head, the shoulders, the body into the world, she had to wonder with this physical relief came dread…for a moment she had a doubt…was all this for naught? And the baby screamed a loud, healthy cry that said to the world, “I AM!” She saw her partner’s face and she knew all was well. The baby was alive. Her body was intact. Her mind and heart were forever changed. But, all was well.

She very well may be a socially constructed woman, like me, in some ways. But, this experience has changed her forever. She will always know somewhere deep down inside who she is and what she is capable of overcoming. She will always know that the “I need’s” of her loved ones are so urgently felt, so desperately begged for, and she will submit. She will say with full agency, “OK, my dear. Yes.” But, she will also know, with a sense of God’s humor and love, that secret truth: that most of the “I need’s” of this world are shallow, but some go deep. Some bring us to the precipice of life and death. Some needs pull out of the depth of our breath, “I am.”

Rich Among the Poor

I told my partner, my lover, my equal, I need you to join me in the revolution. I want to do more. I need a partner, ideas, encouragement. He said, "What are you even doing?" As if I was attacking him with my hypocrisy, as if I was saying that he’s not doing enough, when, in fact, I just want to do more.

I thought of today's symbol of resistance: fists raised in the air. I felt poor and powerless in the face of his accusation. So, I lifted my voice and defensively told him that I participate in Blue Ocean (my LGBTQ inclusive, social justice driven, interdenominational church). I read. I write. I give money. I talk to people. I assert radical insights to people willing to listen. He said something about how I need to write articles, call senators, and join protests. I have called senators and joined protests...I’m working on it. 

I said quietly, “I need you to join with me, so we can encourage each other.” 

He, exhausted from the long hours in his residency program, replied quietly, “I do want to be more politically active.” 

But, when I said "give money" in my list of action steps, I noticed that he cringed. It was the cringe of the Money Clench, of a scarcity mindset. Money is power. I see that we may “join” the revolution only until it hurts. I feel ready to give more. The more I feel the Money Clench, the more I want to give. It’s almost only a rebellion against the Money Clench itself, and less about tithing, generosity or justice. SCREW the Money Clench, that evil feeling that we get when we feel afraid of losing our privilege. Screw that. I’ll give more. I’ll give until I have nothing left. 

Sometimes, I give out of a place of gratitude. I can’t believe we have so much, when for so long (most of my childhood), we struggled to stay financially afloat. I feel joy and freedom when I can buy a bike or a pair of shoes or a flight to San Francisco without suffering for it later. And I see people around me struggling. Acquaintances from my church stare in awe at the freedom of the rich to spend (as I once stared). There is a freedom among the rich to satisfy every whim and need, coupled with a stern and careful frugality when it comes to certain things. Certain things like giving money to the poor. When you are struggling for food, clothes, transportation and healthcare, you gape at the way the rich can so freely spend. You also know that most keep a closed fist when it comes to your needs. 

In these moments, I am at risk of becoming a profligate. A spendthrift. I am at risk of spending my limited prosperity in an extravagant or recklessly wasteful way – on the Ground Cover homeless salesperson, on tips at coffee shops, on GoFundMe sites for strangers’ funerals and healthcare deductibles, on organizations like the ACLU, Muslim Advocates, or Jewish Family Services. I will become money-less (again) trying to slip money to my friends in need.

But, to be honest, I'm not generous, I'm careless. My partner, who works hard and earns most our money, is concerned about my obsession with tithing 10% (which, despite my great sin in boasting of profligate giving, we're not there, not close). He gets a firm and stern look about him. “We are in debt!!!” he proclaims. “Let’s get out of the hole first. Plus, we must save for our kids to go to college!!! And we have a mortgage!” When I hear these words, I become like a large beast shifting my feet, a mammal snorting nervously, hyper-alert to fear. I pull my ears back and growl a warning sound deep in my chest. I say, “Fine!” And I charge ahead. I go and give $50 away, just to spite the Money Clench, the fear of losing our (hard-earned) privilege. 

Scarcity mindset afflicts us – even those of us who have our every need met. There was a joke on a comedy show written by Tina Fey. A rich, arrogant woman talks to a naïve, young woman and says, “God forbid you marry a family medicine doctor!” Matt told me about this joke and I thought it was so funny. It's funny because I thought we were doing well, but rich people think we are mediocre. We have student debts. We have, as my 8-year-old nephew told me, a “small house.” We are poor among the rich. 

This past weekend, our neighbors had a block party. The host? A heavyset man who recently retired from a lawn mowing business. He has the nicest house on our block. Our other neighbors? A young couple, one a research manager in the School of Natural Resources at the University and the other involved in lobbying for juvenile justice legislation. They are vegetarian and vegan respectively. They have a 6-month old daughter. There is also the young man who trims trees for a living. “Yes, tree trimming is a trade,” he told my mother-in-law when she asked. And our beloved witty next door neighbor, who at over 70 years old is working at a bank and volunteers by tutoring with incarcerated juvenile delinquents. She knits us scarves and blankets for birthday gifts. She lives on a strict budget. There is also a young Episcopal Priest in the yellow house near the end. And in the other direction, the mother of the keyboardist for the band, Blues Traveler. I float through this gathering of neighbors. 

“Yes!” I say to our tree-trimming neighbor, “I live in the dark blue house with white trim and a wisteria tree in the front.” 

“Oh, the one with the wooden arbor?”

“Yes,” I smile, delightfully. I feel comfortable, if a little abundant, knowing that I would never marry a tree trimmer or a lawn mowing business owner (even for the nicest house on the block, even when I find out that they have a college degree in computer programming, but that they, like me, wanted to reject the superficial climb.) My husband is a family medicine physician.

My life has brought me to know the wealthy surgeons, lawyers, and business people who belong--who might say to their children, "Heaven forbid you marry a family medicine physician." We belong to country clubs, the anxieties of a shifting stock market, and the dilemma of Dine-in or Carry-out. I wonder if my neighbors attend to the carefully manicured lawns of surgeons, lawyers and successful business people. Many of the (white) people on our middle-class block grew up here, and inherited this property, just as President Trump inherited his wealth and property. I wonder about what I will inherit, and about what I have inherited already. 

There's no time to waste, we must join the revolution. This ladder extends below me from the darkness of the poverty of incarcerated juvenile delinquents all the way up far beyond my view, all the way up to the corrupt Trump high rise towers around the world, and the rolling estates that wealthy people escape to on the weekends. Next to Trump, I see in the White House pictures of his heir, a younger Trump, with her dyed blonde hair, a baby worn in a carrier-wrap, and many published books (ah, yes: Women Who Work).

I can't take it anymore. We must find the revolutionaries. Join the abolition. Give our prosperity to anyone who has been victimized in this corrupt capitalist system, if only to screw the system. Resist. With my body, I say, "No." No, I will not dye my hair blonder or fry it straighter any more. No, I will not starve myself to be beautifully thin. No, I will not follow Ivanka’s lead as a woman who works and hires nannies, housekeepers, tree-trimmers and lawn mowers at cheap wages so that we can earn more, and climb farther up that ladder. Oh, wait, I am already there. Shall I climb? Shall I take my left hand over my right and climb away from my small blue house with the wisteria, away from the men I would never marry, and farther and farther away from the middle-class neighborhood where I was born?

I'm climbing in spite of myself. I'm (somewhat) pretty. I have (dirty) blonde hair, a (fairly) thin body, and I wear my babies in a baby carrier. I'm married to a doctor. I want to publish a book. I'm the sister of a surgeon, a lawyer, an anesthesiologist, step-sister to 3rd generation doctors. Capitalism takes care of children like me, like us. My left hand, raised up as if to say “No!” keeps getting stuffed with money, so much money, I can't make a fist anymore: $50...no $100 dollar bills. So, I take the money out of my left hand and with my right hand I give it away. I give it to anyone who needs money more than me. With my right hand, I throw the meager money I have down the ladder into the dark and shadowy depths of poverty. I can’t see the faces of all the people there and I don’t know what they will do with this money. I only hope my $50 and $100 dollar bills can help. I am rich among the poor.

Yet, I thought money was nothing. Money means nothing. Money has no voice, no power, and no place in the revolution. We each have but one voice to add to the movement and it is happening now, as we speak. There is no hierarchy, no ladder. Here, we can see each other's faces. Here, we can hear each other's voice. We join with the power of people, marching against a corrupt system, with our fists alone raised in the air.     

Jesus and the Disinherited: Overcoming Fear (a sermon at Blue Ocean Faith)

12 Mar 2017—Blue Ocean Faith Ann Arbor Celebration from Blue Ocean Faith Ann Arbor on Vimeo.