Only Human

It started with "Human" by Christina Perri.

It started with a cry I could resonate with,
but it ended with a song where I rewrote the ending lyrics.

I can hold my tears,
I can bite my tongue,
I can work away for days
If that's what you want
Be the number one

I can fake a smile
I can make them laugh
I can dance and play the part
If that's what they ask
Give them all I am

I can do it
I can do it
I can do it

But I'm only human
And I bleed when I fall down
I'm only human
And I crash and I break down
These words in my head, cracks in my heart
I build me up and then I fall apart
'Cause I'm only human

I can hold it in
Be a good machine
I can hold the weight of worlds
If that's what they need
But, inside, I bleed

I can't do it
I can't do it
I'll fall through it

For I'm only human
And I bleed when I fall down
I'm only human
And I crash and I break down
These words in my head, cracks in my heart
I build me up and then I fall apart
'Cause I'm only human

I'm only human
I'm only human
Just a little human

I can take so much
'Til I've cracked and broke

But You were human
You cried, yes, you came down;
You were human,
You bled to break me down,
My sin on your head,
Your Word in my heart,
You built me up when I fell apart,
And You were human.

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them."
Human, he created them.

"then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed."

Man fell.

Yet, after that fall, He who is "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power" came and was human for us.

To be human, God's own children, is to be "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light."


God, teach us to be human, by your definition - with all the frailties attendant on mortal beings, utterly dependent on you, and all the glory of eternal spirits, for "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. […] There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal […] it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” Teach us to be only human.