People Are All Made of the Same Clay

I still vividly remember my best friend’s speech on domestic violence for the Speech and Debate Club in high school I also participated in. It was rousing, it was moving and it was surprising to find out that domestic violence is not limited to poor people, drug addicts, or bad neighborhoods. Rich people suffer from domestic violence, too, and it is a phenomenon that reaches across all social strata.

The movie “Traffic” also sought to prove the same point with drug addiction and trafficking. Rich and poor are addicted to drugs. The same could probably also be said for countless addictions and acts of violence human beings infringe upon one another. We, humans, are capable of atrocious acts of violence. Just think about rape or child abuse.

Humans are also capable of amazing, beautiful, extremely advanced, and intelligent achievements. Think of spaceships and walking on the moon. Think of the making of a TV show or a new invention. We are extremely creative and rational because we are made in the image and likeness of our extremely creative and rational God. And because He operates great things through us. Salvation history, for example.

Works and Being

Yet there is a catch. We confuse works with being. We are capable of doing amazing, spectacular things and God can do great works in us, whether they be works of art of works of love…. But we are creatures. We are insecure. We are weak. We sometimes get sick. We have broken pasts. We have suffered traumatic events. We all have different forms of addiction. We all deal with anxiety in different ways. We “hold treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor 4:7). We “are dust and to dust, you shall return” (Gen 3:19).  We are “the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38).

This applies to all of us, without exception. People that are in public office or government (or even royalty) are in a position of more responsibility to serve others. They are also imperfect people, even if they might appear to have inherited privilege.

There Are No Experts

There are times of more and less inspiration in our lives. In times of more inspiration, God works through someone and speaks to us through people. We should take it and move on. Another day, He will speak through someone else. Instead, we divinize that person who helped us in a time of crisis. Or that speaker who touched our hearts in a vulnerable moment. We model our lives after that amazing human who seems to know all about life or a certain subject.

In reality, we are all poor, broken, wounded, fragile creatures, starved for God’s love, that desperately dress ourselves up, like children in costumes, with power, pleasure, prestige, and job titles.

All People Are Going to God

I have come to realize how we have no control over other’s lives, even our own children, and how little we can influence others. As the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People points out, the first habits are directed at yourself, whom you can sometimes control. The second half of habits are directed at others, whom you can only influence.

Relationships come and go in life. We pass through others’ lives fleetingly and they through ours. People move, people, die. Old relationships are hard to keep in touch with, others are constantly being forged. Let us focus on that day we will see God face to face and have to explain what we did with our time here on earth. Let us live bravely and boldly and be a shooting star to others around us. Let us all shoot toward our heavenly goal.

I once heard a priest say, “You are not better than anyone else. But you are also not worse.” It has stuck with me ever since. We are all made of the same fragile clay and it helps me to think that the director of something important is just as insecure and love-seeking as I am. Of course, there is another catch: “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10).