Sunday, September 22, 2019

Everybody's Human

One of the fundamental truths that I keep coming back to, especially when I'm thinking about other people, is that every human being is human. Everyone has human potential. Everyone has human flaws. Everyone has human limitations. Everyone deserves human rights. Nobody is more than human, and nobody is less than human. We are all the same kind of people, both for better and for worse. Both the best and the worst people who have every lived have been human, and both are clearly within human potential.

I'm not even sure whether Jesus should be excluded from that. Sure, He was perfect, and no (other?) human being is, but He was perfect because He made perfect choices, and we have the potential to do that as well. Besides, we know He suffered many human frailties. It could be true that Jesus was just as human as the rest of us, despite His celestial parentage.

This fact, that everybody is human, teaches me compassion. As different as human beings can be from each other, we're all cut for the same cloth, so to speak. Any of us can learn to be as good or as bad as any of us. This is both encouraging and sobering to me, as I know that both ends of the moral spectrum are within my reach. I can rise to the heights of heaven or fall to the depths of hell or land anywhere in between. Any of us can.

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