“Human being” is more a verb than a noun. Each of us is unfinished, a work in progress. Perhaps it would be most accurate to add the word “yet” to all our assessments of ourselves and each other. Jon has not learned compassion. . . yet. I have not developed courage. . . yet. It changes everything. I have seen the “yet” become real even at the very edge of life. If life is process, all judgments are provisional. We can’t judge something until it is finished. No one has won or lost until the race is over.
“Broken” may be only a stage in a process. A bud is not a broken rose. Only lifeless things are broken. Perhaps the unique process which is a human being is never over. Even at death.
— Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, Kitchen Table Wisdom, p. 223