Wednesday, 2 June, 2004

The focus of these devotions is Walter Wink’s book “The Human Being” and a section dealing with the vision of the Son of the Man in Ezekiel.



Are not the deepest reaches of our humanity born of our wounds, even our sins (though one hesitates to say it, for fear the ego will use it as justification for continuing in destructive behavior)? In this vision (in Ezekiel), then, the ‘one in human form’ represents the archetypal image, “as it were,” of fully human being, reaching out to Ezekiel with a seemingly impossible task: that of becoming human.



What is the task in becoming human? When we try to build everything from bodies to corporations to churches that are “bigger than life” and more in control and as close to being managed as flawlessly as possible, what does it mean to enter the journey of becoming human? Some of you know I started having seizures several years ago. It is an uncontrollable feeling – though medication has eased that stress a bit. Well, within the last hour of this writing, I have been on the edge of what I experience as a seizure…it is an odd experience…a strange sense of wonder and awe and visions. Just a few minutes ago I decided that I better clue someone in on what may be happening. So, I walked up to the young person working at Cup-O-Joe and handed her my business card with my wife’s phone number, told her what was going on and said if something happens to me while I’m working, call this woman. Being human is to be within a realm that is simultaneously fragile and demands courage to be just that. After I told the young worker what was going on, I realized that this will be another way I will be known to the workers. Being human may mean that we do not live with so many secrets that we are unknown to one another or known only “so deep.”



Connection: I’m not sure, but maybe that is where we begin being human today…letting ourselves be unsure of ourselves in front of others for no other purpose than to be who we are. Maybe then a wound can be a part of our healing together.



Lord God, out of the depths of life and those times that are beyond our understanding you touch us and call us to remember the complexities of our humanity and the power to be the people you shaped out of dust. Amen.