Reverence for the Other

Each person, because he or she is created in the image and likeness of God, is due a certain reverence. Without such reverence we cannot hope to be in just relation with one another, to live with one another in peace, or for our societies to flourish. What is this reverence, then, and how does it arise? Here is a hypothesis.

Each person, made in the image of God, is worthy of being known and understood. None of us has what it takes, however, to know and understand another person. A tension arises between what is required of us and what we are able to give: this tension is the basis of reverence for the other. 

(The even greater reverence we owe God arises from basically the same tension: the disparity between what God's existence demands of us and what we are able/unable to give in return.)

If either of the two "pegs" that form this tension is removed, reverence is removed also. Thus, whenever we think we know or understand another person, reverence for him is destroyed. It is an assault against his dignity. It is a failure to recognize our own inadequacy.

Further, whenever we excuse ourselves from the demand that the existence of another places on us, that he be known and understood, reverence is destroyed also. This is another way of assaulting his dignity. It is a failure to recognize what is demanded of us.

All just relationships and interactions need and heed this healthy tension. Any relation, therefore, which is based upon a cheap or easy regard for the other, or places no demands (as I regard irreverence), is prone to injustice.

Greater demands for reverence are placed on us by those most proximate: our family, friends, and neighbors. And these relations are strained, at times, by an over-familiarity that corrodes reverence. In these relationships, then, I think awareness of what is demanded of us and our inadequacy to respond as we ought is most urgent.