IT IS TIME TO BE MOST HUMAN

(Post by: Madie Hobbs) Blogmas Day Ten 2024

I ran across a poem a few weeks ago that has me thinking about what it means to be truly human. That may seem a simple enough consideration to some, but if taken to its depth, I believe it is one of the most complex and intricate contemplations we could partake in. 

As I look around at the way Christmas has become a distant marketing strategy, and the way technology pervades every element of it, I think we can all agree that the secular Christmas has progressed in leaps and bounds, and we are now in a time when very few people reject it. So, what is it to be human in a world so consumed by machines? What power do we hold over the march of “progress” when it holds so much over us?

The poem is written by a Scottish poet I recently discovered; one whose work nearly brings me to tears when I read it. He has such an interesting insight regarding the human soul and the place we have in the world, as the only creatures with dominions over both nature and machine. This one is rather long, and so I fear we will not get to all of it, but here is the beginning, and possibly the most significant part for today’s conversation.

“Oh human thing, there is no light in being a machine.

It is not the hour to upgrade or allow yourself to be replaced,

Nor to be chased from your rightful place on this blithe planet.

It is not your victory to live forever,

Or to trade your skin for some electric dream.

Yours is the cosmic gene…

Human thing, your victory is music,

It is the poem,

It is the branched air between a kiss,

The held hand,

The triumph of an ordinary day…

The human story is not yet done.

It is not time to be post-human.

It is time to be most human.”

~ Samuel Hurley

We are a divine species, are we not? One set above all creation, made in the image of its Creator, to mirror His ways and make little creations of our own.

Yet we forget this is so.

The world we now exist in, and which we are expected to celebrate Christmas in, is one which is hurdling with great speed toward being one which is entirely post-human. Many think this is solely to do with the expansion of technology and our growing dependence on it. While I agree this fixation is doing us no favors, we must look only at the very actions of humans to prove this point. 

Human beings are being eradicated at unfathomable speeds through abortion, their identities stripped and warped in the rapid expansion of human trafficking; on social media, it is now impossible to tell what is truly human and what is artificial intelligence.

We have reduced being human to being a thing which takes in oxygen and releases carbon dioxide. To a thing which can be used for a quick fix with no strings attached. To a pastime. To entertainment with no thought of the entertainment’s lasting effects. To something which is only valuable based on the amount of numbers beneath a username. To something which seeks to profit only itself and rob from others.

Yet, there is something more to humanity than this, is there not? Surely we serve greater purposes.

The reason I believe the poem above made such an impact on me is because I have felt barely human, in any sense of the word, for the past couple of months. I have felt so far detached from myself it has been as if I were merely an onlooker to the storyline which is supposed to be my life. I have passed from one day to the next with nothing significant having happened, or so it seems, and have expected nothing more. I have never felt worse about my appearance, my personality, my choices. I have traded happiness for sorrow against my will, and yet something in me whispers of something more.

The worst part of it all is that I have, really, at the root of it all, felt inhuman.

But what does this mean? Many would say it means you feel distant from yourself. But what truly is the self? The self is the soul. But what is the soul? It is the thing which beckons us to fly higher than ourselves, into the arms of its Creator.

So, what then does it mean to be truly human, a species which embodies all of these things? Quite frankly, to be human is to be a baby in a manger. To be most human is to be a figure which voluntarily self-sacrifices for others.

Because that baby in a manger we somehow forget to celebrate in all the hubbub of this industrialized season, is the only one who got it right. 

Jesus is the only one who has ever really been human, in its fullest and most profound form. For to be human is to humble yourself, to take responsibility for your own actions, and to then be willing to do whatever it takes for salvation to reach those around you.

This is what it means to be most human.

Let us not forget that this season. It is not only about the lights and the décor and the façade of untampered happiness we like to present. To be human often means to feel splinters in your back, thorns on your brow, and the pain of betrayal on your cheek. Yet through this pain, our souls may soar.