Human

What happens to a man when you break him?

When you turn him, when you spurn him, when you take his heart?

When he’s tossed and crossed and at a loss?

When he’s burnt and beaten, torn apart?

Where do we find this broken man?

What’s left: bereft, a man alone?

What remains: the stains of too much hurt?

What is he: a king without a throne?

Why does he cry upon his knees?

Why does he fall or call for one to hear?

Why speak? How weak can one man be?

Why walk so far when no one’s near?

What happens to a man when you break him?

When he’s crushed and hushed and brushed away?

When he’s bruised, confused without a path?

What happens to a man when you break him?

Wrote this poem today. Don’t worry, I’m not depressed or anything. It’s actually happy if you read it right. But I know none of you will. I didn’t the first time either.

What happens to a man if you break him?

We all get beaten down in life. No exceptions. It’s one of the few universal experiences of men. Every one suffers. Which is a good thing, because our suffering allows us to love. There is no love without suffering. And vice versa.

The vice versa is something I’ve only discovered recently, though. In the past, it had seemed that my sufferings were the direct result of a lack of love of some sort. (Don’t be shallow here; I’m not talking just romantic love. And to clarify, love of family is the one thing I’ve never been without.)

But let’s explore the nature of man. What separates man from the rest of life on Earth?

Philosophers will tell you that what separates man from other animals is man’s ability to reason and rationally express themselves to the world surrounding them. In other words, man is rational, relational, and expressive.

These are the same things that allow man to suffer. Man can reason, and just as man can reason to good, man can reason to evil. The result of this evil reasoning is sin, which brings suffering to the sinner and all those affected by the sin.

Man’s relationships can lead him to suffering. When man loses some one he loves, he suffers. When a man is lost to those he loves, they suffer. When one man suffers, another man suffers for him. We suffer for each other all the time.

Man can express beauty, create art, and man can express evil, create hatred. Like sin, this inevitably leads to suffering.

But it also leads to love.

Leads to love. It does not create it.

Man cannot create anything from nothing, let alone beauty or truth or goodness or love.

We are not alone.

I don’t always know what to believe. I have my doubts. Not that my doubt exceeds my faith. Not even close. But it’s not really my faith after all. I know in what to place my faith. I trust that Object of my faith to do the rest.

What happens to a man when you break him?

He is still just a man.

But He is always God.