'Oh, The Humanity'

Spirituality Column #68
February 26, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

‘Oh, The Humanity’
By Bob Walters

Being “human” can be great … and not so great.

When someone does good things for mankind, we give them a “humanitarian” award.

When we do something sinful or stupid, i.e., make a mistake, we are quick to point out, “I’m only human.”

When the 800-foot-long German airship Hindenburg burst into flames 200 feet above the ground as it approached its mooring tower in Lakehurst, NJ, May 6, 1937, killing 35 of 97 souls on board plus one ground crewman, WLS Chicago radio reporter Herb Morrison famously cried out on that live national broadcast, “Oh, the humanity.”

The many iterations of “human” most definitely concoct a mixed bag of implication.

“Humanity” and “humanitarian” conjure an aspiration to our better and caring nature, that divine and moral aspect of our being that pursues and reveres justice and doing the right thing; that wants things to work out gently and OK for all God’s children.

Being “human” typically seems a condemnation or at least an acceptance of fallenness; a reference to the way we mess things up and find ourselves at a distance from God because he is divine and we are, well, “only human.”

There has been one perfect human in history, and that was Jesus Christ: fully God, fully human, fully love, and fully sufficient to solve our “human” problem.

We simply must never stop at “I’m only human.” That phrase should be a starting point to moving on, growing up, maturing, changing and receiving what God has already told us we acquire in Christ, through the fruits of the Holy Spirit:
- To be in the kingdom of God
- To get rid of the negative (sin)
- To be creative
- To have a bond of love with the people around us.

Take a look at Galatians 5:16-26. It covers St. Paul’s advice (vv. 16-18, 25-26), our human sinful side (vv. 19-21) and our fruitful, divine side (vv. 22-24).

We must not be blind to the perfect path God creates so that we, even in our human imperfection, can be accepted by God perfectly and eternally. Jesus Christ came as fully God and fully human to create a divine communion with humanity.

Why a human? It takes one to know one.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has had more human moments than he cares to count, and is thankful God counts faith.