Human Condition

Here I sit—safe and warm, in a comfortable chair.
Eat my lunch; while into the peaceful outdoors, I stare.

Sun-splashed boughs, with leaf-shaped shadows, dance.
Beautiful music and setting, does my mealtime, enhance.

I have privileges, time, food, shelter and ease.
Life is good. I am blessed and can do just what I please.

Yet, in the far room, a loved one, estranged, exists.
His deeds are justified, right, and important, he insists.

Unconvinced, I lament the irony our lives can portray.
Love versus truth. Lose/win, win/lose, come what may.  

Around the globe, the news tells us there is more strife.
The innocent with “the wrong faith,” pays with his life.

In another place, orphans are homeless, hungry and pale.  
And the wealthy are blind and deaf, while governments fail. 

This place we call earth is an ugly, complicated mess.
Worse yet, you and I are the problem... I confess. 

© 2015 gratefulsue

back to Beautiful and Difficult

August 17, 2024
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Human Condition describes the pain and frustration we all feel when loved ones have strong disagreements. Of course, when people disagree who are not loved ones, but rather strangers or culturally different, the divide is far more difficult to address with patience and compassion for all parties affected. We must lay our own agenda aside at first, put away inflammatory language, listen with empathy, not judgment, and then work diligently toward compromise and resolution.