In Louisville, at the corner of 4th and Walnut,
in the center of the shopping district,
I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization
that I loved these people,
that they were mine and I was theirs,
that we could not be alien to one another . . . .
It was like waking from a dream of separateness,
of spurious self-isolation in a special world,
the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. . . . . .
The sense of liberation from illusory difference
was such a relief to me that I almost laughed out loud . . . .
My happiness could have taken the form of the words,
‘Thank God I am like other men,
that I am only a man among other men . . . .’
It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race,
though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities
and one which makes terrible mistakes;
yet, with all that,
God himself gloried in becoming
a member of the human race.
Thomas Merton
