It’s fixed now, but in the past couple days somebody hacked my blog so that it redirected people to the Chinese Sex Museum.
Hmmm?!
I don’t know what to think about that. i-youniverse.net (and related others) is a pretty basic little blog with a very small community of readers.
The name comes from Walter Kaufmann’s translation of Martin Buber’s classic I and Thou. Buber’s family wanted “I-thou” changed to “I-You,” because they correctly thought “thou” language out of date and counter to the intimate every-day-ness that Buber intended the I-thou relationship to represent.
The idea rocks: relate to all humans and all else in creation (even matter) as “subjects” to be respected and loved, NOT objects to be manipulated and used; in so doing, we relate as the Deity relates.
Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, a Catholic geologist, author of The Divine Milieu, believed even matter tingles with the Presence. The Chinese Sex Museum has nothing as exciting as Teilhard’s Hymn of the Universe, which you can read here.
How does it feel to be hacked?
I’ve been reading about how God wrote Ten Words on two stone tablets.
What would those be worth to a publisher?
A trillion bucks a word?
But Moses became so angry at the people’s idolatry, that he threw the tablets down and broke them.
Not hacking exactly, but equally destructive.
Jesus wrote, but in the sand. We don’t even know what. (John 8.6,8)
In comparison, the words in my blog don’t seem to be so important, do they?
I haven’t seen but have heard described how Tibetan monks will spend days making an elaborate, beautiful mandala of colored grains of sand. Then, after displaying their work, they sweep it away.
All things mortal so.
Except Love. The Love at the heart of creation which—who—we give many names.
Love is at the core of I-thou relations; it is the essence of an I-Youniverse, an I-You bond.
At moments of ecstacy, Buber imagined these bonds as though moving from Center to Periphery, forming a wheel of light.
John the Elder—the great author of much of the Johanine corpus (Revelation, Gospel of John, 1,2,3 John)—concluded one letter with:
“Although I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink; instead I hope to come to you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.” 2 John 1:12 (NRSV)
The Apostle Paul described a kind of communication, “written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” 2 Cor 3:3 (NRSV)
This is Love, the ultimate language.
Against such wondrous Love as this, no attack will succeed, no weapon prevail.