Amy Sander Montanez is a writer, teacher, therapist, retreat leader, and spiritual director who attends Trinity Cathedral, Columbia. She is the winner of the 2007 Polly Bond Award of Excellence for Devotional / Inspirational Writing from Episcopal Communicators.

In the Moment—One Pilgrim's Attempt to Be Present

By Amy Sander Montanez, D. Min.

The Human Race

Is there really a human race? Is it going on all over the place?
If I get off track when I take the wrong turn,
Do I make my way back from mistakes, do I learn?
Is it a sprint? A dash to the end?
Am I aware of the time that I spend?
And why do I do it, this zillion-yard dash?
If we don’t help each other, we’re all going to crash.
Sometimes it’s better not to go fast.
There are beautiful sights to be seen when you’re last.
Shouldn’t it be that you just try your best?
And that’s more important than beating the rest?
Shouldn’t it be looking back at the end
That you judge your own race by the help that you lend?
So take what’s inside you and make big, bold choices,
And for those who can’t speak for themselves, use bold voices.
And make friends and love well, bring art to this place.
And make the world better for the whole human race.
— Jamie Lee Curtis

This poem is part of the text of a children’s book entitled, Is There Really a Human Race? that was given to me for my birthday. I collect children’s books and use them, mostly, to teach adults. The good books usually have some wonderful symbolism, often deeply spiritual, and usually a reminder of something important in life.

We don’t have to work hard to find the deeper message in this one. Almost everyone I know, including myself, is racing around. I keep thinking the world itself must be spinning faster or buzzing at some current that we’ve never buzzed at before. We could speculate about the reasons for this, and I’m sure various experts would offer up different reasons. Mostly, though, I think it is really a spiritual dis-ease, all this buzzing around. It is really bad theology, coupled with social pressure and technological assault.

What do we as Episcopalians believe about our “human race”? In the catechism in The Book of Common Prayer (p. 845), it says that we are created in the image of God and that we are free to make choices: to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God. It then says that the reason we don’t do this is because we put ourselves in the place of God and therefore misuse our freedom.

Is it possible that we are putting ourselves in the place of God when we are buzzing around at warp speed? How can we possibly be free to love and create and live in harmony if we are moving so quickly we barely have time to breathe or think or act? Even more basically, within all of that buzzing, do we make time to listen to God so that we can align ourselves with God’s will and not our own?

(photo: Gkuchera/Dreamstime.com)

This book ends with a wonderful suggestion. “So take what’s inside you and make big, bold choices. / And for those who can’t speak for themselves, use bold voices. / And make friends and love well, bring art to this place. / And make the world better for the whole human race.” Racing around in any form is probably never good. I don’t recall any stories of Jesus buzzing around at warp speed. But if we must race around, as it seems our culture is destined to have us do, doing more of the things mentioned above would at least serve the higher good.

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