The relation of the self to one’s own being is realized, even made
possible, in the encounter with the other. The other is a force the char-
acter of which is to drive us to encounter our own being. We can say this
because the other is not one who appears because we have imagined her,
nor is the other a mere representation of the anticipation in which we live.
That is, anticipation does not cause the other to appear as other. Instead,
because it is the other that makes evident our being, we might say that the
other who is yet unknown makes possible our anticipation. The relation to
one’s being is initiated by the encounter with the other who is not oneself,
and yet before the arrival, we are already situated in an anticipatory stance.
Thus, it is the other who is the condition for the relation, or refl ection,
with oneself, with being. The encounter initiates the realization that one
is here, because the other is there. Thus, Derrida writes: “The other is
indeed what is not inventable, and it is therefore the only invention in the
world, the only invention of the world, our invention, the invention that
invents us. For the other is always another origin of the world and we are
to be invented.” 25
There is yet another way in which the anticipatory stance is implicitly
present in being. To be is also to be in a location; it is to be here rather
than there. Here is the location that belongs to being, to oneself, while
there is the location that belongs to the other. Here as the place of being
is thus the location in which being resides; it is where being makes a home;
it is where being dwells. Dwelling, says Heidegger, is building; it is set-
ting aside a space and claiming right to it as one’s dwelling and not that of
another. Dwelling is preserving and sparing spaces. 26
Let us here employ a quotation from “Building Dwelling Thinking”
to make another move with Heidegger. He writes: “the manner in which
we are...is dwelling. To be human...means to dwell.” 27 Dwelling then is
an act that arises from our essence. And it arises from our essence because
to be what we are is to dwell. Dwelling is constitutive of our being. Being
is such that it lends itself to dwelling because it is in dwelling that being
is realized. As Heidegger might say, it is in dwelling that being realizes
itself, in dwelling being becomes. Dwelling is being, but it is also more.
Dwelling is the manner in which being becomes being. Being does and is
what being does and is only in dwelling. More to the thesis of this chapter,
dwelling implicates the encounter with the other and the effects that such
an encounter have on the unconcealment of our being.
Dwelling, says Heidegger, is building; it is setting aside a space and
claiming right to it as one’s dwelling and not that of another. Dwelling is
TONGUES AND THE REVELATION OF BEING: READING PENTECOSTAL... 59