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In a great metropolis, someone comes your way:
you don't look at him twice, even though
you've never seen him before and may
never see him again: you seem to already know
when you see him he is of who you are;
and if he wasn't you'd never know him.
Break that generality into its particular event:
that policeman, that little child, that woman in red:
so other, they step away beyond your control,
identified though lost to identity, known
yet abandoned in the context of your knowing
that is the whole world and everything in it.
The lonely are not more alone than the companioned:
think: are not friends the expression of oneself?
and the friendless know themselves without
the aid of appearances, and feel at a loss
only if what they know about themselves is
better expressed in their perception of others.
Anyone who has friends will know there is a single
act of knowledge of friends among themselves:
everyone knows himself as he is known to be,
identified in context; the friendless know no such
constraint, and their freedom is compensatory:
oh, for a friend as good as one that's non-existent!
Take Jesus. No one wants to know Him until they see
the knowledge of Jesus is the essence of friendship:
you can never know Jesus except that He reveals
Himself, but what you know is of yourself alone:
the friendship of Jesus is revealed as knowledge
of you, a you that is known in terms of who all are. |
