“When I work on a bone or two, it’s very easy to forget that these are actually people with their own lives and stories,” said study author Bence Viola, an anthropologist at the University of Toronto. “Figuring out how they’re related to each other really makes them much more human.” This is a quote from the lead scientist of a study that reveals family dynamics among groups of Neanderthal remains that were discovered in Russia. You can read about it all here, and in even more depth here.

I hope I’m not the only one who notices the irony of tying being “human” to a group of Homo ancestors who have often been defined in terms of their non-humanness as “cave men” or primitives or other words like that. The idea conveyed to us is that these hominids were a stepping stone to the much more perfect “us” –– homo sapiens.

It turns out to be a very interesting insight into the courage to be, to exist. We tend to think of being human as a default thing. Something that gets labeled on those things with intellect and reason and two legs and an opposable thumb. But we don’t have access to these Neanderthals’ mental lives or what precisely took up their time and their days. But we have a story about their interconnectedness and their relationships that survives through millennia and through rock and soil. And that is what conveys their humanness. It’s a reminder that sometimes the bravery it takes just to be is one of the most enduring things we can offer the world.

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Sometimes it is hard to tap into our spiritual selves or find time to nurture our creativity and intellectual curiosity. Here is a section that reflects on some nourishing materials from around the web and related media channels in order to get us thinking, get us feeling, and get us reflecting on the lives we are living in this big, beautiful world. **Some Adult/Mature Themes May Appear in Links and Other Attached Material**

Allan T. Georgia, MDiv, MTS, PhD

Sometimes it is hard to tap into our spiritual selves or find time to nurture our intellectual curiosity. Here is a section that reflects on some nourishing materials from around the web and related media channels in order to get us thinking, get us feeling, and get us reflecting on the lives we are living in this big, beautiful world. **Some Adult/Mature Themes May Appear in Links and Other Attached Material**