Clapping from my Balcony: Sharing our Humanity with help from Sheri Kling

Clapping from My Balcony

sharing our humanity with help from Sheri Kling

Sheri Kling Sings "I am Human"

"'I am Human' is a song I wrote to convey that our shared identity as humans is more foundational than any other identity we may claim. Offering this song today to help in these hard times." Sheri Kling

I Am Human (by Sheri Kling)

I belong to heaven and earth.
That is my highest identity.
I’ve been formed through people, places, and time,
and the Spirit of God* in all entities.

Chorus: I am human, I am human.
you are human, we are human.

I have faith, a tradition that I embrace,
But religion is only a part of me.
It’s a window through which I witness the Light.
It’s a way to expand my humanity.

Chorus

I was born in a land I call home
but a nation is just a geography.
And these borders do not define who I am,
All the earth needs my love and my loyalty.

Chorus

We have bodies that shine a rainbow of life
a glorious span of diversity.
But deep within us beat the same human hearts,
yearning for love and community.

Chorus #2 We are human, we are human.
We are human, we are human.

We are lifted by recognizing our bonds
Reaching out with a wide hospitality.
Every thread is held and strengthened by more,
Interweaving our heavenly tapestry.

Chorus #2 We are human, we are human.
We are human, we are human. We are human,
we are human. We are human, we are human.

© 2013, Sheri Kling, Waking Woman Music

Italians Clap on Balconies

Reflections while Listening
to "I am Human"

When I see the folks in Italy standing in their balconies clapping for the health care workers, I see something very good. I think of Sheri Kling’s song “I am Human.”

I feel "lifted by recognizing our bonds" and hopeful that the threads of our individual lives are woven together into a "heavenly tapestry." I become a religious humanist.

Varieties of Humanism

There are many kinds of humanism: atheistic humanism, theistic humanism, anthropocentric humanism, ecological humanism. I don’t want to be an atheistic humanist, although I know and like some people who are. Nor do I want to be an anthropocentric humanist who thinks that humans are the measure of all things, and that all the other creatures on earth are but backdrop for the human experience. I want to be a theistic, ecological humanist, and that’s why her song speaks to me.

“I am Human” invites me to recognize that I belong to heaven and earth and that, along with all other entities I am formed by the Spirit of God. Knowing that she is a process theologian, I realize that, for her, the word “entity” includes all living beings: plants and animals, hills and rivers, trees and stars. But, of course, her song focuses on human beings. To my mind, her song invites me to consider the wisdom of a theistic, ecological humanism.

Identities

As I consider the wisdom of such a humanism, I also ask: “Who am I, who is thus considering this wisdom?”
When I think of myself, I bring my various identities with me, some chosen and some assigned. I am a middle class and male and married and a father and a college teacher and white and Christian and a dog-and-river-lover and an American. If people ask me who I am, I will often identify myself with one or several of these categories, and rightly so.

I cannot pretend to be everybody. I am a concrete human being, limited by these identities, which differentiate me from others. In the language of process theology these various identities come together, or concresce, to make me me. Or, perhaps better, a me-in-process, forever seeking individuation and wholeness.
“I am Human” invites me to recognize that none of these identities are all of me; that there’s something more to me than anything I just named and that this something links me with others who have different identities. I am human or, she puts in the second chorus, we are human.
Widening

And it invites me to recognize that these various identities, both limiting and enriching are, in the words of the song are but “windows to the Light” and ways of “expanding my humanity.”

This means that the more within me is not a static substance contained within itself but rather a process which can, in a conscious or unconscious way, use these identities to be more open to the Light and more connected with other humans. This means that being Christian and male can be ways that I become more connected, not less connected, with other people, including the countless many who have different identities.

And it means that when I am open to the Light (in the language of process theology open to initial aims) the process of widening begins and grows. The widening will not make me less me, but more me. In the language of Jung, it will be widening and individuating. In the language of Sufism, it will be both expanding and contracting at the same time.

Speaking of Jung, check out Sheri Kling’s article in Open Horizons: Whitehead, Jung, and Psycho-Spiritual Wholeness. Here’s a quote from the article that fittingly ends this reflection:

"From a Whiteheadian perspective, we can understand God to be both near to us and actively involved in our wholeness because for each one of us, God is present to us, internal to us, in every moment of our existence, and offers us the creative possibilities that can move us out of our painful pasts into transformed futures. I believe that dream work is one practice we can use to discern those possibilities.

This is true no matter our place of birth, no matter our current or past circumstances, no matter if we believe a certain doctrine or not, no matter our gender, no matter the color of our skin or the content of our bank accounts. It is true for every one of us because this is how the world itself is continuously created. And the possibilities offered by God are always relevant for that moment. God offers us God’s self and God’s vision for our best outcome in every moment. God and God’s possibilities for our wholeness are as near to us as our next breath."

- Jay McDaniel