Sympathy with Humanity

I wasn't complaining. Though it sounds a bit like it now...
On a peninsula of rock jutting like a castle between a gorge and a vale I stood, breathless from the scramble. Hands in my pockets and with eager step, if heavy heart.

Perhaps a few will understand when I say I carry on my heart at any given time a thousand reasons to laugh, and a thousand reasons to weep. Most all of them with first and last names.
Such is the cost of loving humanity, I suppose.

Anyway, this post isn't about me.

I'd just gained the crest, just finished a brief review comparing the power at my disposal with my far-too-often dismal performance, just realized afresh how deep mercy reaches, and—

It's not fair, You know? I deserve the lot of the criminal, but here I stand in converse with The Infinite, while people I love slowly die in the clutches of fear....

Can you see why happiness means nothing to me when it's mine alone?

...So, it's all or nothing.

Either I am to be completely at Your disposal to help the weak, comfort the wounded, and actually lift, and heal, and effect a lasting change, or...

Or, I want out right. now. 

Because it hurts too much to be in sympathy with humanity.

Ever have you been in that place or time when suddenly every tree in the wood seemed to drop its jaw and gape? and you wonder:

what did I do. What did I just say?

The only answer is this electric silence.

I glance one way and the other. Wait.

He never says. But suddenly it's as if every snowflake has recovered from shock and found a voice.

He would know.

He would know just exactly how much it hurts to be in sympathy with humanity. And He chose it, over the alternative, not because there was no alternative. For Him, there's no "out."

For Him, there's no wanting out.

"For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities."  Hebrews 4:15