SO VERY HUMAN envisions a world where all people get to be human and live without the threat of violence.
Built upon the notion that violence, whether directed towards others or ourselves, exists as a direct result of alienation – that is the estrangement from our humanity and it’s inherent dignity – SO VERY HUMAN asserts that the presence of violence in the world demands our efforts of de-alienation.
Our capacity, however, to address the violence in the world and to humanize people who have been alienated is directly correlated with the degree to which we have addressed the ways we are already violent and alienated to ourselves.
Henri Nouwen once said:
“I have lived my whole life with the desire to help others in their journey, but I have always realized that I had little else to offer than my own, the journey I am making myself. How can I announce joy, peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation unless they are part of my own flesh and blood?”
It could be asked then: How can we humanize others unless we have first humanized ourselves?
SO VERY HUMAN is a multi-medium creative project wherein I document my personal progress towards de-alienation through description (writing), drawing, and dance with the hope that it acts as an invitation to others to do the same.
Through inviting others to the sacred work of de-alienation, it creates the possibility of collectively confronting, interrogating, dismantling, and reimagining systems, ideologies, and worldviews that in insist on “othering” particular populations and thereby perpetuate violence.
SO VERY HUMAN suggests that perhaps the most fundamental mechanism to accomplish this work is by way of fully participating in our total humanity. Since such an act necessitates the harrowing work of radical acceptance and deep integration of the total self, authentic human participation can be understood then as a radical spiritual practice that subverts and rebells against the forces of alienation and violence in the world.
In this way, as a creative project, SO VERY HUMAN, can be understood as a litany on human participation.
Litany, from a religious point of view, is defined as “a ceremonial or liturgical form of prayer consisting of a series of invocations or supplications with responses.”** As such, each creative act within the SO VERY HUMAN project acts as prayerful invocation of my own inherent humanity and invites others to respond by invocating, witnessing, and welcoming their own.
Some people who inspire, shepherd, and guide me through their spiritual practice of integrated human participation are Henri Nouwen, Alok Vaid-Menon, Vincent Van Goh, Thich Nhat Hanh, Brene Brown, Alua Arthur (and other death doulas), dancers and those committed to somatic intelligence, and hospice chaplains everywhere.
I hold a master’s degree in Theology and Religious Studies with a specialization in Christian Spirituality and I currently live, work, and learn in the Netherlands.
Most of all – I am so very human.
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** Definition of ‘Litany” / Dictionary.com. (2024, January 17). https://www.dictionary.com/browse/litany
SO VERY HUMAN 