I wondered what it could mean for “Being as such” to be a Person, a Thou, as surely, from my own experience, God is.  Then it struck me that this rushing Stuff, this force of Being, is also the being of me.  And I am a person.  So why shouldn’t the rushing Stuff, the Being of—of what?—the World, of Being itself, be a Person writ large?  I don’t mean the World merely in a physical sense, since my own being is not merely that of my body.  Similarly, the Being that animates everything could be a Person.

Looking out the window at the passing trees, it struck me that their very leaves are full of Being as such, the Being that is also a Person, and that it made sense for them to be a Thou for me.  And, more remarkably, for me to be a Thou for them.  I felt that Being facing Being, not necessarily speaking but simply facing, is what personhood is.