What do two octopuses and a Viennese philosopher have in common? And how do they relate to what is happening in Israel and Gaza?

Encounters with Invertebrates

After reading a fascinating book by Sy Montgomery called The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonders of Consciousness (caveat: I find it an unfortunate name, as i do not believe octopuses have souls), I ended up watching a short documentary about free diver Craig Foster’s daily encounters with a common octopus off the coast of South Africa. Outside of causing me to geek out over the complexity of an invertebrate creature (much to my children’s bored chagrin), the power of even an encounter with an animal only confirmed thoughts I have been having from reading Martin Buber’s I and Thou.

Even though both Sy Montgomery and Craig Foster encountered animals, they approached their subjects as sentient beings to be understood rather than objects to be consumed or manipulated. They sought to build trust between animal and human. This slow-built trust and deep respect for the creatures they were studying enabled a truly transformative encounter with something as simple as an octopus (which is arguably less simple than many of us thought).

Sy went regularly to the New England Aquarium and spent hours watching, studying, and interacting with her would-be octopus friends. Craig daily swam to visit his common octopus friend, taking months to build enough trust for moments of true encounter with his unexpected, eight-legged friend. The time and energy and thought they put into studying and seeking to understand an invertebrate might seem obsessive, especially when compared to the scant time, energy, and thought we put into our interactions with souled beings like humans. Strange, yes, but also terribly convicting.

It seems that true encounters, even with amorphous animals, are costly not cheap. They require investment, intentionality, and a genuine curiosity and desire to understand.

I and You Encounters

Buber’s book I and Thou is dense and a bit confusing, but his underlying concept has to do with real encounters between an I and a You, as distinguished between interactions between I and It. In Buber’s framework, to have an I and You encounter, we must cease to see the other as an object to be controlled or consumed. We must begin to seek to understand them as a whole being. When we flatten people and group them as a conglomerate, we make someone a Them rather than a You. People are easier to categorize that way; our lives are more convenient when the lines dividing Us and Them are clear, but this is no path to true, transformative encounter.

As I read about what is happening in Israel and Gaza, I find myself praying for God to allow genuine encounters between deeply entrenched groups of Us and Them. It seems obvious that starving or scarring the other with shrapnel is only deepening dark lines of demarcation. I am not in a position to offer simple solutions to an elaborately-complex situation; however, any solution or way forward must start with a genuine I and You encounter somewhere. Further dehumanization and reiteration of Us and Them (or worse, I and It, which sees the others not even as humans) solidifies the conflict.

The One Who Encounters Us

As a Christ follower, I cannot think about genuine encounters, not even with invertebrates, without first remembering the God who encountered me in Christ. Even though the gap between the Creator God and his creatures is far wider than the gap between octopuses and humans, Christ became incarnate so that we might truly encounter God. He paid our eternal penalties so we might be brought into life-changing encounter with the One for whom we were created (Ephesians 2: 13). The infinite God became a finite man that we might know the visible image of the invisible God — and be known intimately by Him (Hebrews 1: 1–4; Galatians 4: 9). Our ability to genuinely encounter God cost him discomfort and death.

Our encounters with God through faith in Christ necessarily change our encounters with others. Having encountered such undeserved love, we are freed to encounter others with costly love and genuine concern and interest.

If less than a year of genuine encounters with a common octopus left an indelible mark on the heart of a free diver, imagine what a few genuine, costly encounters with others as I and You rather than I and It or Us and Them might do.