Sometimes it takes the 24-hour flu to remind me that I am just human. As my strength returned this morning I took a walk to the beach. As my feet reached the sand and I breathed in the fresh, salt air, I sighed, “Today, I’m just human.” It felt like a thousand pounds of unrealistic expectations dropped from my shoulders onto the sand below. All the “should haves,” the “oughts,” the “whens” and “if onlys” driving my soul fell to the ground. As the next wave washed away my footprints, my superhuman burdens were also swept away.

I, like many, try to live a superhuman life. Superman. Many, from Nietzsche to the writers of the comic-book hero, have pictured humans evolving or becoming superhuman in various ways. We imagine that it is in our power to become super or beyond human.

To facilitate this we create time efficient toys to make us feel we are achieving super human abilities. God is omnipresent. So are we, or so we think by our smart phones. God is all-knowing so are we with our access to infinite online knowledge. God is all-powerful and so are we, at least in our own minds. (Our spouses and friends know better). Still, in ways we appear to be beyond human.

But there is a price to pay. The more we conquer and accomplish the more is expected of us. It used to be that 40 hours a week was a normal work week. But when we were out of the office we were not working. We were playing, eating, driving or resting. Now we ring every drop out of those multi-tasked-forty hours. Then on top of that, we take our work into the car, at the lunch break and to our home. We cram 60 hours of work into forty and then take an extra 20 outside the office. Have we become immortal or are we less human?

The weight we carry and the speed at which we travel reminds us of our true mortality. We may be able to travel in space but we still need space suits. We may be able to work and accomplish great things but we stress ourselves to the point of exhaustion and psychologists still insist we need proper sleep to recharge. We still need to eat and exercise. And we still need play time to re-create our souls. As amazing as we think we are we are still merely but barely human.

The bible, even from the earliest pages, reminds us of that. Genesis chapter two describes us as being created from the dust of the earth, just like the rest of the animals. We are creation not creator. It is a great but humbling reminder to contemplate the truth I don’t always want to hear— I am dirt.

Yet, Scripture is equally stunned by the action of God in making us in his image. The passage says he breathed into us his breath making us a living soul. So we are unique and distinct from the rest of nature but that distinction is not our achievement. It is God’s. I am the image of God to those around me.

Yes, I am special not because of my accomplishments and abilities but because of God’s character stamped onto my being. Reflecting God to this world, giving his love to those around me is the highest the most superb thing I will ever do.

The writer of Psalm 8 seems to reflect this tension between dirt and the divine when he says:
what are mortals that you should think of us, mere humans that you should care for us?
For you made us only a little lower than God, and you crowned us with glory and honor.
Yes, it is wonderful and humbling to be human.

So as I continue in my walk I embrace the dirt-ness of my humanity. My footsteps are washed away as quickly as I leave them in the sand. I can’t do everything. I can’t be everything. I can’t be everywhere or respond to everything. Life is coming at me too fast to respond. I am racing down the freeway so fast that I couldn’t slow down to catch the next exit even if I wanted to. I almost thought I was God. But only he is everywhere at once, all-powerful and all-knowing. There is a God, and it is not me. As for me? Today I’m just human.