“Woe even to those of praiseworthy life if you put their life under scrutiny and remove mercy. But because you do not search our faults with rigour, we confidently hope for some place with you. If anyone lists his true merits to you, what is he enumerating before you but your gifts? If only human beings would acknowledge themselves to be but human, and that ‘he who glories would glory in the Lord.’”—Saint Augustine, Confessions
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I’ve done ugly things and been called a hero. I’ve given of the best in heart and been called different. I’ve learned the labels and judgments of man are often poor assessments (especially in the collective) and that it is not this valuation or esteem I seek.
Men judge, but God knows the heart; and in the end—I believe—it is on His scale, by his measure, that each of our lives are weighed. Who am I, who are we, to judge?
I’ve done good. I’ve done wrong. Some days I improve. Some days I regress. I have changed for the better and carry, too, thorns and simple sins I know I still should change.
In short, I am human—as human as the next. We all deserve our mercies, forgiveness and compassions that allow us still to strive and to let low our enmities that, in the end, harm us far worse than to whom on which we meant them cast.
If only we could acknowledge ourselves to be but human, laugh with lightness at our fallibility rather than hold to a gravity of false-godliness. We are not that—no one is, and anyone who pretends and postures should quickly be dismissed for the betterment of all’s lives and greater sanity. Idolization of false-gods and secular saints who seek the martyrdom of mankind and the human spirit for no greater gain or glory than one’s own credit and accolade are the greatest and fastest propagators to hell on earth.
We are all but human, as human as the next.
