I was working on the dishes this morning, in the kitchen.
“Oh NO!!!” I hollered as a pile of dishes in a mixing bowl shifted and the water sloshed out of the bowl, out of the sink, onto the floor and my pants and my shoes.
My daughter came running over, “Where is the broken glass?”
“There isn’t any broken glass,” I responded. A little disgruntled and a little agitated.
“Well at least nothing is broken,” She responded with a smile.
I considered for a moment. I softened. “Yes, at least nothing is broken.”
At least nothing was broken. It’s true. It was just a puddle on the ground and a rag later, and a wipe down of my pants, everything was more or less, good as new.
It’s hard sometimes to remember how good we have it. It can be easy to get buried in a problem and think the world is coming to an end. It isn’t likely to.
Individual worlds do collapse.
Illusions shatter all the time.
But we are here. We are alive. We are a miracle.
It’s easy to lose sight of the fact we are human. We are miraculous.
I spend much of my day buried in my thoughts. In a world I have constructed in my head. I fold and craft a reality around me from the images I build in my mind of what I believe is happening around me. It’s not real. It’s not as bad as it seems.
At least there is no broken glass. Yes, sometimes there is a mess. Sometimes there is broken glass. But we are here. We are human.
Human is a very loaded word.
It can be an excuse for behavior and mistakes. “He’s only human.”
It can be a burden to overcome. “Held back by humanity.”
It can be a low water mark above which some rise, “She’s superhuman.”
It can represent disgraceful behavior or shocking catastrophe, “Oh, the humanity!”
It can represent the best of us, “It is beautiful to see human kindness.”
It’s easy to forget it represents us. With all our foibles and all our strengths. It’s important to remember that we are human.
Yes, sometimes we are a mess. But that is okay. After all, we are, only human.
Namaste,
Kevin
