You Are the Human Condition

You were born into a world where people kill people. You chose to be here. Think about it.

You are the whole human condition. I am the whole human condition. We all embrace the best and the worst of it.

Yet our so-called 'spirituality,' and our 'liberal' politics, though they pose as compassion, are often but a form of disdain, a cynical idealism that finds most human behavior intolerable. That is why we spend much of our energy protesting in anger and trying to reform the rest of the world. But our endless protests and reforms don't really change the world, because the human condition is just as it is.

There is another Way to be in this world, a Way which has nothing to do with protest and reform. It is the Way of non-resistance.

Embrace everyone, embrace everything, just as Jesus embraced the world when he spread his arms on the Cross. He didn't say, "Father, reform them. Father, wipe away their ignorance and teach them the path to enlightenment. Father, overthrow the hierarchy and fight for social justice."

He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He just embraced their not-knowing, their ignorance. He embraced violence and gentleness, wealth and poverty, oppression and the oppressed.

One embraces all. The hug is unconditional. This is the Way of compassion. And the mystery is, the miracle is, if we embrace things just as they are, that is precisely when they blossom, transform, and unfold their wings.