Khan's Castle

A while back, I sat across a room and listened to a dear friend describe a hurt, a suffering that followed him across decades that wasn't his fault. He told me, “I have always felt like something was wrong with me.” After talking a while longer, he looked at me and said, “It's hard to be human.” He wasn't angry that I could tell, but his eyes shown melancholy in the warm glow of the lamp in the middle of the night. There were many people outside, but the loneliness in the room was palpable and it broke my heart.

The next day, the unspeakable beauty of some music I heard made me weep: Clear soaring voices sang words I couldn't understand, but the melody and harmony spoke in their stead to my soul, gently enjoining me to see the world and the sorrows in it, to weep for the pain caused by me and to me, for things lost never to be retrieved, innocents that suffer the abuse of others, friends afraid to let friends fully into their lives for fear of losing them. And for the heart wrenching times when they do lose them. And perhaps even, for the joy of when they don't.

I know a boy that was laughed at for being himself. He was different.

I know a man that loves listening to sad songs that make him cry because he doesn't cry sometimes when he should.

I know a young woman who shed bitter tears about a love who loves her but left anyway.

I know a boy that gets punished by his father when he shouldn't.

I know a girl that gets the same.

I know a father that wonders if he can forgive himself.

I know a mother that hopes she can do the same.

I know this: We are all struggling up the same hill, falling, slipping, sliding and trying to get by. It is hard to be human.

God, please forgive us all.

To my friend who struggles to be human, I pray that: