faith and the presence of god in the between of i and thou

in which way can we say that god is present in our lives? from a dialogical perspective, we cannot begin from a commitment of faith. we must begin with the face-of the-neighbor. 

this requires no faith. perhaps doubt, yes, certainly great determination, but there is no spiritual system to guide us toward the truth of presence. 

every system we conceive can only guide us deeper into the system of beliefs from which it has emerged, but not to an independent reality outside the system itself. 

for we are not lead by systems of beliefs, we make our spiritual lives as we walk on the earth, embrace by embrace, and, as the poet machado said: "blow by blow".

i cannot comprehend the existence of the universe without the existence of a god. but i cannot comprehend the existence of a god that is distinct from the universe. as spinoza explained, deus sive natura, god is nature and nature is god. i understand god and nature as one and the same. but here is the most essential distinction: the god that is nature must be perennially created and recreated into life by the deeds of man. we bring to life the god that is nature through the human deed of relationship. for god, like love and like poetry, is not an entity external to us, it is a deed we do between i and thou. god exists to the extent that we exist, and we exist to the extent that we enter into a dialogical relationship with a being. 

god is not an answer we provide to the question of existence, god is a relationship we enact. we are always in relationship, let it be, for god yearns to become presence.

in other words, relationship precedes faith, and faith is the grace humans convey to the gods. faith is not revealed from the heavens on high to the earth below. we plant seeds of dialogue on the red earth, and those faith-blossoms she births reveal themselves from the earth below to the heavens above. our meeting with one another is our prayer.

but is there a difference between heaven and earth? only in the imaginations of man and god. as above so below for there is no above and no below, there is only the in-between of i and thou. our existence and the existence of god are the dialogue of an i and a thou. 

nothing more difficult. nothing ever more essential.