The Power of the Gaze: I-Thou gazing!
Last quote, i promise—looking at Martin Buber’s amazing book “I and Thou” again today (one of my favorite Jewish thinkers and aestheticians) thinking about how to view art and life, and started thinking about how well we view one another, and the power of gaze (do we really seek to see one another from God’s perspective in a practical daily way), and what that activates in one another. The prophetic glance is one which calls forth true self. It’s the difference between pornographic and life giving sight!
His book “I and Thou” is beyond recommended reading—it’s a basic metaphor of how perception works in relationships.
When I look truly, i cannot lust or take anything from you—I-thou looking eliminates pornographic vision! Which I think is one of the most essential issues in our time—to see therefore interpret one another well! When we see well, we become healers of the image of God in each of us!
I can bless you with my sight, and be in wonder of who you truly are. We can bless one another by how we see one another! I do not see you in terms of my own needs, i value you for yourself (you are not just something to fulfill my needs or a projection of my past experiences; you are a unique thou or poem of God’s being; i must encounter you as a poem I’ve never read, and that is my challenge!)—and am astonished by the poem of who you are!

I see you as a thou and not an it! I see you as a friend and family member.
I look out at your eternal self, and by seeing it, bless it into becoming. This is the role of a good gaze in the healing. I make you whole by staring at you from the spirit of Christ in me. True perception is an underrated healing agent! How else would you even want to use your imagination. How I image you helps you become that.
How we look at one another matters eternally.
The role of how we see one another is bigger than we think. I need to see you more and more as how God sees you. That’s my task of perceptual sanctification! It heals my imagination as it calls your true image forward!
Buber taught, that to truly see art or one another, we must be willing to risk our own inner thou to encounter what this particular artist or person is and is expressing about who God is- from his or her deepest self. It was really a call to encounter “deep to deep; spirit to spirit”. When we see well, we become agents of healing or making things whole. Perception is underrated in the healing process! This is one of the higher roles of art itself. And certainly part of being in Christ!

We have a call to encounter on a deeper level of dialogue with one another. And this is essential in order to make it beyond the constant it-ness of media and and general culture now. We must see one another deep to deep, or at least be willing to take the risk towards doing so!