Human vs. Humane

Consider what these two words mean. Obviously “h-u-m-a-n” is their similarity, yet they have very different connotations. And I’m not talking about the definitions you’ll find in a dictionary.

As we live right now (April 2020), confronting the many challenges COVID-19 has brought our world, let’s examine ways this crisis is asking us to reclaim our humanity. It’s our very HUMAN nature to see others as different, often even as our enemies. Other individuals, other ethnic groups, other races, other languages, other nations, other political beliefs/parties, other religions – and countless other differences create prejudices, hatred, divisiveness, even war.

Most human beings recognize wealth as the root cause of these differences. Inequities and disparities are born from a consciousness that revolves around a material existence. We judge others as the have’s or the have not’s. And we judge those who have in terms of monetary wealth, property, material goods, position/power/status, and other tangible and visible “assets.” Those who have less tend to often be under-valued as less themselves.

There are billions of people who fall into either a “have not” or a “have less” category. We also know that the greatest wealth and power resides in the hands of a very few. Recent 2019-2020 statistics include the following:

• 8 of the 10 richest people in the world are Americans, leading with Jeff Bezos of Amazon with $113 billion.
• #’s 9 and 10 are Walmart’s Alice Walton at $54.4 billion and Rob Walton with $54.1 billion.
• The USA boasts 29.39% of the world’s wealth, followed by China with 17.7%.
• Americans have a significantly higher NET WORTH than anybody else in the world.
• The net worth of the world’s wealthiest people is right at $6 trillion – more than the total for all of Africa, $4.11 trillion.

NEVERTHELESS, even these billionaires and trillion-dollar economies are not immune to COVID-19 and the toll it’s taking. Yet even as fortunes are tanking – just as our much more modest incomes and living standards are doing – these statistics demonstrate what so many deem the most important human asset: our wealth.

Stop a minute and ask yourself what you want that money CANNOT buy. Even health, as is becoming abundantly clear, can be bought. This coronavirus pandemic is seeing countries and states vying, in dollars, to secure critically needed equipment and medicines to help save lives. Yes, it seems LIFE can be bought. And what about loving relationships? While hopefully most of us still believe that love can’t be bought, right now our country is seeing a surge in domestic violence. Domestic partnerships are breaking down, as food shortages and restrictions on our once normal ways of “doing life” have found so many of us sheltered in place.

Amidst all the stress everyone is experiencing, most of us have the luxury to just BE in ways we never thought possible before. Hopefully we’re using at least a bit of this “down-time” to get quiet and examine what our lives really mean, and what things are truly most important to us. Human beings are relationship-oriented. We NEED other people in our lives. Ironically those who are at home with other family members 24/7, as well as singles who are living alone, ALL feel the challenge of what being “in relationship” can mean. Or what we want it to mean.

COVID-19 is inviting us to recall what it means to be humane, not just human. And to consider what each of us has been put on this Earth at this particular time to learn, and subsequently to practice. “Humane” embraces such concepts as compassion, generosity, acceptance (not necessarily agreement), forgiveness, caring, humility, loving, and other similar ways of being.

As humans we have split the atom, walked on the moon, invented all kinds of technological marvels – yet we continue to focus on differences rather than humanity’s shared interests and truths. It’s past time we shifted our focus from all things material to our underlying similarities and the ultimate ONENESS from which all life arises and is sustained. For eons we’ve underestimated what our united wisdom is capable of producing. . . .how cooperation and joined forces can eradicate the divisiveness and threats we’ve endured for so long.

This current global pandemic illustrates at the physical level just how connected we all are. Let it awaken us to realize that same oneness that unifies us at the very depth of our being, our humanity. It’s possible – some would say it would be a miracle – that this deadly virus could also be a force for healing humankind. After all, as St. Augustine once told us, “miracles are not contrary to nature . . . only contrary to what we know about nature.” And there’s SO much we have yet to learn. So many miracles we have yet to recognize.

So let the learning begin. Let’s eradicate the fear that is gripping our world and is being fueled and sustained by our dependence on outer things, people, and situations. And from our inner, most natural state of loving kindness, relieved of the false sense of security we get from material possessions and dependence on others’ behaviors and beliefs, let us join together to defeat our common invisible enemy. In so doing we can manifest a new, higher way of living. As the best scientific and medical minds from all over the world join together in finding answers to overcome COVID-19, hopefully decision-makers and politicians will put aside differences and embrace our common need for survival.

And even more than survival; I’m talking about TRANSFORMATION. To paraphrase Carl Jung, everything could remain as it’s always been, had not a new way demanded to be discovered. I believe this virus is demanding humanity realize a new way of being. We can survive and live to see another day, although we can rest assured it will be different from our old normal way of life. OR, preferably, we can transform ourselves from creatures dependent on other people and material resources to influence how we live. If we are to truly OVERCOME this virus, this plague on humanity, we’ve got to learn to listen to our own higher nature. And that’s the inner voice we so often dismiss or completely ignore. The gift of quiet this time offers invites us to tune in, to go inside, in ways we’ve never experienced before.

We must wake up from the collective belief that we’re separate, and join forces – even with those we consider our enemies – in order to overcome this threat to our very survival. And we must do more than just survive. Unless and until we change from our over valuing over-dependence on materiality, instead focusing on the spiritual truth of our being, we will continue to experience increasingly more “deadly” crises. We’re being called to wake up from our collective amnesia and to remember our oneness as spiritual beings who have forgotten our divine identity. The very ONENESS that creates and sustains all is demanding that we pay attention and release our misplaced dependence on people and things outside ourselves.

Until we recognize our interconnectedness with each other and with our planet, attitudes that focus on differences, divisiveness, and dissension will continue to wreak havoc with our individual lives and the survival of our species. COVID-19 is a powerful wake-up call. Unless we heed its greater intention and recognize what it comes to remind us, our possible redemption will instead be our probable undoing.

The potential to overcome this or any other apparent crisis lives within each of us. It is the essence of our being, the hidden power we’ve come to recognize and reveal. May we all answer this wake-up call to rely on our ultimate inner, spiritual essential selves, our humanity, rather than continue to dwell on misplaced human values and desires.