Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

279yourself to it, it says Thou to you and gives itself to you." 686 In the language ofthis extended reflection, in the face of the other, each person sees the image ofGod.It is a mutuality that expresses itself in terms of immanent sharing, onewith the other: "[h]ere alone, then, as reality that cannot be lost, are gazing andbeing gazed upon, knowing and being known, loving and being loved ... trueaddress receives true response." 687 This is the language of intimate, mutualrelationship, of lovers for whom there is only now, who dare not seek to quantifythe moment at risk of the moment being lost. This transcendent image is Buber’sintention.Whilst this moment cannot last, and the realm of It-ness renews focus,there is that which can be taken from the realm of Thou-ness into the realm of Itness,and that is a confirmation of meaning. Encounter with Thou-ness is not anend in itself. Such revelation is of the nature of the commissioning of disciples.As Buber describes, “meeting with God does not come to man in order that hemay concern himself with God, but in order that he may confirm that there ismeaning in the world. All revelation is summons and sending.” 688As the realization of Thou-ness diminishes and the boundedness of It-nessre-emerges God assumes a more objectified form, that is, It-God. Whilst God canno longer be realized in terms of revelation it becomes incumbent upon the It,with the acquired meaning, to speak about God, thus assuming a missionalmantle. 689Thus, as with the ongoing and ever-developing nature of pastoral analysisand ever new pastoral modelling inherent in the hermeneutic process of thisextended reflection, salvific-type work assumes a spiralling form. The I returns toa world of oppression, and the Thou serves as an ever more vivid bearer ofrevelatory meaning. As Buber asserts hopefully,In each new aeon fate becomes more oppressive, reversal moreshattering. And the theophany becomes ever nearer to the spherethat lies between beings, to the Kingdom that is hidden in ourmidst, there between us. History is a mysterious approach. Everyspiral of its way leads us both into profounder perversion and686 ibid., 33.687 ibid., 103.688 ibid., 115.689 ibid., 115-16.