"What is the thing the Creator never saw, that kings see but seldom, and that I see every day?" The Creator never saw another the same as his self, kings are scarce and see each other seldom, but I see my own kind every day - other folk like myself.
___ Scots Gaelic riddle (trans CM)
During the twelve of Christmas, a Lord of Misrule was appointed to create games, riddles, and forfeits to amuse the company. The riddle above, with its witty answer, is a typical brain-teaser. This holiday time of gathering offers us the opportunity to consider what it is to be human. Being human does not keep us from kinship with other animals; the same life passes through our veins, we share the same ability to perceive with the senses, and our bodies die and decay in the same way. What makes us different from animals is our self-awareness and our ability to use our minds in complex and sophisticated ways; our application of language; our ability to record information outside our memories.
There are many stories of deities who have aspired to the human condition, gods and goddesses who have purposely chosen the gifts of mortality in order to share and experientially understand what it is to be human. Within tgus extraordinary interchange, the divine becomes briefly human, just as through our spiritual striving we attempt to understand the gifts of immortality.
This wonderful reciprocation of the earthly and otherworldly realms seems to be part of the mystery that underlies the depths of midwinter, a season that was understood in the ancient world to be the time when sacred beings incarnated to be numbered among the peoples of the earth, to understand the gifts of being human. If our human state is so much sought after, how much more precious seems our mortality and its many gifts!
"What, for you, are the gifts of being human?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
No comments:
Post a Comment