How do we see each other?
No ordinary beings, we
Who blunder pathetically
And wonder emphatically
Who stumble and fumble
And grumble too much
No ordinary beings, we
Who forget what matters
While our thought scatters
To life’s present tatters of
See-hear-taste-touch
No ordinary beings, we
Who run out of patience
And repeat mistakes and
Still need each other
Like mother and child
No ordinary beings, we
Of common commitments
And often insistent
Upon our own way
While mercy runs wild
No ordinary beings, we
Who wear pants-shirts-dresses
And need hugs and kisses
And grapple with greediness
Don’t you agree?
We are extra-ordinary
Even in spite of
Our exterior write-offs
Because we are instilled with
Immortality
© Janet Martin
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on
immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death
is swallowed up in victory.”
1 Cor.15:54
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a
mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and
their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke
with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting
splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must
play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest
kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other
seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”
― C.S. Lewis
