In I-Thou relationships, we recognize each person as unrepeatable, an inestimable treasure, an image-bearer of the living God. We treat each individual as sacred, as one created from the very breath of God. Most importantly, we welcome their otherness, acknowledging how different they are from us. In other words, we don’t try to get something from them or treat them as an extension of ourselves, the way we might treat an object such as a hammer or a phone. In an I-Thou encounter, we come to the other without preconditions—without masks, pretenses, and, at times, without words. We are
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