[April 2004 journal entry]
Whom do I trust unconditionally? Whom do I know that well? Whom have I tested that carefully? With whom have I faced together the necessary existential challenges over many years? In whom has unconditional trust not proven to have been misplaced? With whom have I shared the deepest wounds as well as the deepest joys? Very few. I try to express clearly and often my gratitude to each one for this rare gift. Individuals I know only indirectly through historical sources – e.g., (of deepest significance for me) the 1939-45 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the ‘non-religious’ ‘Jesus’, the author of the ‘scrapheap’ Job middle section of the story/play Job, the author of Ecclesiastes – form a second crucial circle re ‘trust’, distinguishable from the first/inner circle of ‘trust’. I imagine trusting these individuals unconditionally. However, they are more difficult to trust unconditionally than individuals with whom I live and work due to uncertainties re historical reconstruction of their lives and thoughts, absence of shared experiences, inability to converse, differences in the concrete realities faced, lack of intimate familiarity, inability to share corrective and/or restorative feedback, . . . . Beyond the few individuals I trust unconditionally and the few individuals I know only through historical sources I imagine trusting unconditionally, there are many persons I trust with varying levels of caution or self-protection.