impinged and been incorporated, and perhaps have become in some ways newly decisive. This process of scattering and gathering is threatening, hope-filled, and ongoing. We never finish with it. The process invites us to view the otherness of self as a friend to be welcomed, and not a threat to be resisted or denied. Thus the “othering” process admits of no settled self, because the self is always reengaging self in an ongoing covenanting exercise. I cite two tests which I believe are related to this