When we hear news about our world, many times it is taken as simply information or data.  This information is about something that has happened or someone who has done something.  There is an implicit alterity or otherness about the information.  If it is not perceived as something that directly affects us, we can easily objectify it.  It has become an object of knowledge and from there, indifference can set in.  We may form an opinion about it, but it does not seep into us.  Instead it is pushed farther out away from us.

On the other hand, this information, if perceived to have a negative effect upon us, becomes an otherness that can be viewed as something hostile and against us.  Then, the objectification takes the face of protection, defensiveness, sometimes bigotry, hostility and violence even.  By the same token, if the news information is taken as something that positively affects our lives or our livelihood, the objectification is grasped by us.  It still does not seep in to us, but we try to hold onto it.  This is still objectification.

Arguably, the COVID19 pandemic has eradicated or at least extremely narrowed any sense that ‘this does not affect me.’  That being said, it is still easy to objectify the situation.  Here, the objectification may assume the form of a consideration of the adverse effects it has on my life without taking into account the different adverse effects happening in others’ lives.  We only need to look around to see the different attitudes taken regarding social distancing and the re-opening of the economy.

The question seems to be how each of us sees things.  However, here we are still talking about objectification. We are still looking at something and someone else and how it affects me.  What if we took a step back and looked at where we are looking from?  What is the source of our sight?  Could that be the invitation in today’s gospel (JN 14:15-21):

Jesus said to his disciples:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always,
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept,
because it neither sees nor knows him.
But you know him, because he remains with you,
and will be in you.

For Jesus, the lines of demarcation are slim to none when it comes to relationship.  Knowledge and love seem to be close cousins if not the same “person.”  This Spirit of truth is something that does not and indeed cannot objectify and cannot be objectified.  Any attempt to objectify it is a denial of the Spirit.  This Spirit is not a something at all – it is an abiding presence living in the most intimate chambers of those who are open to Its love.  In a way, it’s not a matter of knowing or seeing the Spirit of Truth, but more seeing from the Spirit of Truth – letting the Spirit see and live through us!

I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
In a little while the world will no longer see me,
but you will see me, because I live and you will live.

This is an unimaginable intimacy that is available to us.  “You will see me, because I live and you will live.”  We are invited to see in and through the spirit of Christ, which is the same as allowing this same Spirit to see and live through us.  When this is engaged, we are living the life of God or, if you prefer, God is living as our lives.

On that day you will realize that I am in my Father
and you are in me and I in you.

This is living in the Spirit, i.e., in Love!  And here love is not an add-on, it is not an object and it does not objectify.  As Raimon Panikkar describes it, love is neither equality nor otherness, neither one nor two, yet it requires differentiation without separation…a going towards the ‘other’ that is simultaneously an accepting of the ‘other’ into one’s bosom.[i]   This is making space for the ‘other’ within oneself so that the ‘other’ is not outside of me, is not other as separate.

Love is the living space that opens up within us and promotes uniqueness and wholeness so that when we live from this space, our seeing itself is transformed and thus promotes further transformation in that same Love.  Here, love in its fullness must be reciprocal – I must be loved by the other so that I can see the ‘other’ in the very mirror which the other’s love has transformed my very self.[ii]   Love transforms our seeing the other because it is coming right towards us from the other.  Love has the capacity to move from and toward all directions all at once. – I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you, and I in you and I in you…  Love sees not through rose-colored lenses, but as the lens of transmutation that provides a meeting place, where love reciprocates and multiplies.  Everyone is affected in all situations.

This is not meant to be metaphysical ponderings, but rather an invitation to relational experiences that have the divine power to transform.  Can we find that inner platform in ourselves – that Love From space?  Perhaps, some may ask, do we even want to look for it?  Could it really bring us together in a way that would command our lives paradoxically in the divine freedom of Love’s very nature? It is worth the risk I believe.   Love lives and sees…because I live you will live?.

Whoever has my commandments and observes them
is the one who loves me.
And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I will love him and reveal myself to him.

[i] Raimon Panikkar, CHRISTOPHANY: The Fullness of Man (Orbis Books: 2004), 57-58.

[ii] Ibid., 58.