What are human beings?

James Cathcart January 04, 2021 0 1

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Listen to this daily worship

Psalm 8 (NRSVA)

1 O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
2     Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
    to silence the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
    mortals that you care for them?

5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
    and crowned them with glory and honour.
6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under their feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Not animals.

Not robots.

Not angels.

But human.

Not golems.

Not algorithms.

Not aliens.

But human.

Not elves.

Not androids.

Not deities.

But human.

We are not magical

Or digital

Or divine

We are human.

Our prayers leave finger prints on reality

Testaments to who we are

Broken but crowned

With no angel wings to shelter from the sun

No thick pelt against the cold

Or programmable instructions to follow

No golem’s scroll

Or elven spell

to call upon.

Just our fingertips pressed lightly together

In the dark

tendrils of the human spirit

holding so carefully

to the gift of existence

always learning

becoming.

PRAYER:

Creator God,

Between the meteoric and the molecular

what are human beings that you are mindful of them?

We marvel at your generosity and care,

at the intricacy of it all.

Amen.