Sharing Our Humanity
We are all more alike than we realize. Whether we are aware of it or not we share a common humanity. No matter what language we speak, or what background we come from, we human beings have much in common. Sadly, many of us don’t focus on what we share with one another. The “Me” culture that sets the self over community encourages us to forget our shared humanity. President Obama once said, “What stands against love is failure to recognize our common humanity. We will not find justice and peace until we insist on our human capacity to empathize, to listen to each other and see ourselves in the other.” Most members of diverse groups share the same fears, the same hopes, the same flaws and strengths. When we come to understand that, we are able to see others as fellow human beings. Jesus was humanly present to his disciples, sharing in their hunger, their thirst and their need for rest and human companionship, and the humanity of Jesus enables him to relate to us, and to sympathize with our human frailties. We are not alone.
lhart@gwi.net
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