Landon Saunders:
The other day someone said to me, "Landon, I wish I knew how to be human."
Announcer:
Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of Heartbeat, the podcast, featuring the teaching insight and the voice of Landon Saunders. On today's episode, Landon explores what it means to be a human being and specifically introduces the ABCs of being human. Enjoy today's podcast with Landon.
Landon Saunders:
How can we live truly human lives? What does it mean to be a person? These are questions of great interest to thousands of people today. Now I want you to listen to three beautiful words, awakening, believing, caring. These are three of the really great words in the English language, but more than that, these three words are the ABCs of being human. A for awakening, B for believing, C for caring. A new start, a foundation for your life, and a caring relationship that nothing, and I do mean nothing can ever, ever destroy. But I'm wondering whether you've really thought all that much about your life. Or perhaps you think of it when someone close to you dies or during a serious illness, but that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm thinking more of whether you've really thought through the meaning of your life, whether you've defined your goals clearly, whether you have a plan for your life.
Life that aims at nothing usually hits it. But that's not very human, is it? What we all need is a map with some directions. And having such a map won't mean you'll never encounter storms or that you won't occasionally have breakdowns, but it can show you where to find shelter and it can enable you to travel in joy because suddenly your life has a plan with a clear direction and destiny. Now, most of us map our meaning in words. You take the alphabet and the letters become words, the words become sentences, and the sentences become your life's story. What is your story? Are the sentences coherent? Do you even have the right words? Well take heart because it's not too late for the jumble to be transformed into words, real words and meaning. Your life can come together and make sense, but where do you begin?
What are the ABCs of being human? Well, the A of being human is awakening. With your physical birth you began traveling away from a time when you didn't exist toward a future time what, won't exist again? I don't think so. Now, from outward appearances, it may seem that your life is nothing more than a spark between one eternal darkness and another, but you have your inward awareness, which has problems with this. When you die, imagine nothing can take your place. If being human means ending in pain and nothingness, then what we call life is a rather cruel and purposeless experience for persons who are born to reason and hope and create and love, don't you think so? You see, my life is not a sick cruelty joke and neither is yours. You're not traveling from nothing to nothing grinning and dying and crying and sometimes screaming and sometimes silent, and all the time struggling until finally, until finally you give up the struggle and begin the slow wait until you become nothing again.
Life is more than that. Now, let's not miss this. The question human beings are asking is how can we get quality life? Now, we obviously didn't get it from our parents. We received life from our parents, but it carried no guarantee for quality. Parental life was simply not enough. We still grew up confused, empty, lonely in so many instances, living but hardly alive. The question remains, how can we get quality life? Most people still think real life would be theirs if they could only get a million dollars or if they became famous, as if the wealthy and famous of this world are all happy. You see, most of us are still pursuing the wrong goals. Your real purpose as a human being is to awaken to real life, life that is stronger than mere physical life, life that can't be done in by the circumstances around us, but rather triumphs over any circumstances.
Life that never fades with age, but grows richer by experience. Life that doesn't begin in powerlessness and end in fear, but always life whose deepest characteristics are a sense of rightness and peace and joy and power. That's true life. It's true human life. Perhaps your life was damaged and scarred even in your early years, even the years over which you had no control. Maybe you've made some bad decisions that bogged you down more and more until finally, the confusion, the loneliness, the emptiness, the broken relationships, they were just all too much. Is there no beginning again for you? I'm not talking about a weak, sentimental, purely emotional formula. Our nation is rife with a watered down, theistic religious expression that's nauseating. None of that is suggested here. This is a tough call to an honest approach to life that sugarcoats none of the harsh realities, but rather enables you to face them head on and win.
Announcer:
Landon will be back in less than 30 seconds, but we wanted to take this moment to let you know that a complete transcript of today's program on the ABC's of being human is available for download simply by visiting the show notes page. If you have any difficulties or if we can be of help in any way, let us know. And now let's get back to Landon.
Landon Saunders:
And so I guess the question now is can you really believe that you can begin life again? Is such faith possible? And this brings us to the B of becoming human, believing. What I'm really getting at here is our need for something to believe in or to put it another way, a real foundation for life. A life builds on something. It builds on a set of beliefs. And just as a foundation gives shape to a physical house, what you believe gives shape to your life. Now, some people build their lives on thousands of little time and possession particles of their everyday existence. What we do, what we have but isn't building on such things really like building on the sand. Don't all these little particles have a way of changing rapidly like the child's castle built in the sand? But there are others who believe in whatever their culture hands out, television values, movie morals, pressure ethics, but look around you. Are the lives built on these cultural matters, are they solid? Do they have quality?
Is there some other foundation of faith on which we can build? How many times have we thought we had found meaning and joy only to see it vanish later? We hadn't dug deep enough. We laid our foundation on sand. We dig deep to find a rock, a principle, the foundation for our lives, a foundation so strong that no storm can destroy us. The catastrophes, the daily events, the torrents of our passions, none of these will be able to wreck the life founded on this solid rock. But do you believe such a foundation exists? Or is your problem one of what appears to be just an inability to believe. You'd like to, but you just can't? Do you know how to believe? Let's consider this a moment. I think first, you must never let anyone try to convince you that believing is abnormal for people. To the contrary, without faith, we are incomplete as people.
And furthermore, believing doesn't mean that you'll never have any doubts. True faith doesn't exist on shallow certainties or the absence of questions. A man once cried to Jesus, "I believe, help my unbelief." And so to believe you just begin where you are and you find the right object for your faith.
Now, this is saying something different from believing in religion. I mentioned this just a moment ago. Many feel they can't believe today because they don't know what or whom to believe. There are so many religions, so many voices. Listen, you don't have to hear any of them. And so I really urge you not to stumble over the perplexities of cultural religion. Just remember that religion and Jesus are not synonymous. Religion crucified Jesus. Religion has perpetrated insufferable crimes. Religion has stifled human freedoms. Religion has practiced the most hideous forms of discrimination. Religion has defied scientific fact. To equate Jesus and religion, that's fatal.
And this brings us to the C of being human, caring. Now, all persons were meant to be caring persons. To miss that is to miss our real nature. Or have you been hurt so many times that you've erected enough defenses around you that you're protected from feeling. No one can disappoint you because you're going to keep your distance, take care of number one. But is that what it means to be alive and human? Can you wall yourself off from people and when as a person? What you must find is the way to open yourself to others without leaving yourself vulnerable to destruction. And once you've begun learning, you can't imagine how it changes your life, the love, the joy, the hope. Life becomes warm and exciting again. You feel useful and worthwhile and it soon affects everything you do and touch, your home, your job, your play, everything. The ABCs of being human, awakening, believing, caring.
Announcer:
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