We are humans. All of us. And while we come from different cultures, and hold different beliefs, and embrace a variety of traditions…we are human. Our dress may vary, our economics might be quite different, the language that we speak may be entirely unknown to others, and we may well be spread far across the socio-economic spectrum…but we are human. We might not cherish the same things, or have the same vision, or stand for differing causes, or carry out our daily tasks in a manner that might not even remotely resemble what others do…but we are human. All of us.
We Feel Deeply
We feel…deeply. We love…passionately. We desperately desire a purpose for our existence on this earth, and we incessantly seek out the meaning that such a purpose grants us. We hold our children close, keep our enemies at bay, and wish for a better world for both. It is our desire to love and be loved…to be accepted and held close by others who value the fact that we exist and that our existence lends something to theirs. In calmer moments we wish the best for our fellowman, and in our best moments we do something to create that ‘best.’ We are human. All of us.
We Think Deeply
At times we fear the future and we often regret the past. We wish that we could ‘wish’ away many of our choices and wipe the pages of our histories clean of the things that we were too ignorant, or selfish, or insecure, or immature to avoid. We wonder if there’s enough time to correct the past and make something of the future. So we sit in trepidation and fear, asking ourselves if we have enough sand in the hourglass of our lives to correct our mistakes. We fear many kinds of darkness, and we often feel that we don’t deserve any kind of light. We wish better things for our children, but we often wonder if we know how to direct them to those better things. And if perchance we do, in our more quiet moments we wonder if those ‘better things’ actually exist at all. We are human. All of us.
We Believe Deeply
We want to believe in something that’s patently real, eternally timeless, persistently invincible, and reliable without the slightest question or least bit of doubt. We’ve spent enough time in the pursuit of hopes, and dreams, and promises that melted in our hands the moment that we grasped them or evaporated in front of us the very second that we gave our hearts over to them. In an increasingly turbulent world, we seek that which will ground us and hold us fast, as the pathetic foundations that we have constructed turn to sand before we ever place a foot upon them. We want to believe because we need to believe. We are human. All of us.
We Long Deeply
Deep in our souls we all wish for the simple things…peace, the smile of a friend, food for the day, quiet in the night. We may have wrapped all kinds of lesser things around us that make us look horribly different, but we are not. We are human. All of us. And that humanity is a steeled thread that runs through all of us that cannot be broken by color, or ethnicity, or traditions, or beliefs, or philosophies, or propaganda of the most belligerent sort. We are human. You and me.
And If…
And if, just if we begin to understand that we all feel, and think, and believe, and long in the same way with the same kind of heart and soul and mind. That we all hope, and fear, and dream, and seek, and walk burdened with great regret and forever longings. And if we pause long enough to press out the propaganda and the unruly voices that declare that we don’t share these things, we will come to understand that we experience all of these things in ways that are strikingly similar. All of them.
And finally, if we refuse the arrogance of those would seek to divide us by telling us that we are different in a way that demands that we fight to protect those differences. And if we reach out past the baseless ranting and embrace all that binds us, imagine for a moment how incredible this world could be. Imagine how different we could make it. Imagine a world unified. Imagine that if you dare. For, we are humans. All of us.
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
- Genesis 1:27
Craig Lounsbrough
M. Div., LPC