Wholly Other

I've been thinking lately about the term, "wholly other." The idea that God is wholly other usually refers to His status as being outside creation, outside time, etc. But what if we applied such a concept to things a little closer to home.

The concept of, other, is often reference to people. The other is something outside yourself, on individualistic terms, or something outside your realm of self. Other can be simply something with which one does not identify. The other is a person outside your social structure, outside your economic standing, outside your racial identity or sexual identity, the other is that person whom you just don't want to let it. The other is there but never here. The other is always them and never us. When you let the other in, genuinely and not administratively, when you allow the face of the other into your totality without management a sort of transcendence is reached. If God is wholly other, then He is in a unique way that person for whom you want nothing but denial. He becomes that which you do not wish to accept.

God's face is always pressing in against ours, for He accepts all. As we are created in God's image, we take part in that creation as we allow the face of the other to penetrate us. When we allow the other in and let them become us, we begin to accept God's gift of salvation. God is that person behind the counter to whom you decided to lash out and to whom you refused to give respect, the immigrant you wish they would deport, the woman you took advantage of last night, the man you sued for all they had, the kid who threw a rock through your window, the person who sits in prison because of what they did to you. God is wholly the other. This is why we have been given the ministry of reconciliation, God wants us to let him in and make peace with him. He dwells, in a unique way, within the space that divides us all, one from the other.

These are lessons I am trying to learn from a book I read a couple of months ago: Touch of Transcendence by Mayra Rivera