Holy or Human
"You try so hard to be holy that you for get to be human."
That criticism was leveled at one of the most sincere church workers I know, the other day. I winced for him, because perhaps the same thing might be said to so many of us by some of our critics, if they were frank with us.
I got to thinking about it in the night. Do I have to be holy or human? Is it inhuman to be holy, or is it superhuman? I believe it is neither. Humbly, I believe the effort to be holy is the highest and best I can make, and certainly I am not very successful at it if I make the very people I want to help think that I am less than human.
Holy means "whole." That's the original Anglo-Saxon of it. It is from the old word hal, long a, which according to our way of saying it now would be "hale." To be holy is to be hale, and surely there can be nothing less, or more, than human about that.
I think sometimes that some of us build barriers between ourselves and others around us by being too sober and somber and grave and solemn about our chief concern, which is living a life. I know a
100