Now, more than ever before I feel the need to explore the meaning of being human. While on the one hand I can see the frailties, failings and fragility of humans, on the other I can see the light that shines through some of them that can provide strength, hope and inspiration to others. Sometimes I see both attributes in the same individual at the same time. Other times I see someone completely transform from one end of the spectrum to the other over time.

Who better than Rumi to look to for some answers:

“I am not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen.
Not any religion or cultural system.
I am not from the East or the West,
not out of the ocean or up from the ground,
not natural or ethereal,
not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story.

My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.
Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved,
have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being.”

And:

“We are pain and what cures pain, both.
We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.
I want to hold you close like a lute, so that we can cry out with loving.
Would you rather throw stones at a mirror?
I am your mirror and here are the stones.”