| This month I have been thinking about the virtue of humility. Pondering how it can inform our relationships and even the way we respond to the latest health guidelines. (side note on vices and virtues, my latest blog post talks all about acedia, more commonly know as sloth, and how it may be showing up today. You can read it here) It is not something we see modeled very often by leaders in all spheres of life, in fact, we have seen a lot of pride lately, but it is a much-needed attribute. In his book Good to Great, James Collins, asserts that humility is the key to great leadership. It moves a leader from good to great. Jesus tells us something similar when he says the last will be first. Humility derives from the word “humus” or the earth. It is a reminder that we are but dust. Not a concept we find very attractive, since we seem wired for a preoccupation with our own greatness. Those who are humble live close to the earth with feet firmly fixed on the ground. They neither exalt nor demean themselves, but have a right understanding of their place in the world. We tend to think of humility in a negative way – as spineless and wimpy, but true humility shows great strength. This virtue allows us to see ourselves not as apart from others, but as part of the whole, as one strand in the grand web of humanity. Humility keeps us in a growth mindset. We know not one of us is finished. We are still all in a state of becoming. The more we recognize this in ourselves and extend grace to ourselves in the middle of our incompleteness, the more we can do the same for others. |
| One aspect of humility that we seldom see is the childlikeness that Jesus commends. We are too proud to act in the open and guileless ways of children. We think we have to act “like a grown-up” in ways that hide our true feelings. Maybe we have even lost touch with our feelings believing them to be inappropriate at “our age”. Have we lost the ability to giggle with delight over the rambunctious affections of a puppy or the exuberant embrace of a child? Are we capable of being stopped in our tracks at the sight of a glorious sunset? Do we still have the capacity to weep from hearing beautiful music? Tish Warren Harrison asserts in a recent article, “some movements within Christianity subtly mingle the gospel with stoicism, portraying the emotions as threatening or profane. They end up elevating reason and a cold kind of piety above all else.” This leaves no room to embrace the childlikeness of humility. When our eyes are off of ourselves and how we might appear to others, we can embrace what it means to be humble, and become like a child reveling in all that life has to offer. |
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| Humility reminds us of Jesus. When He chose to come to earth at Christmas, He relinquished His rights and privileges as God and chose to live as a human (while still remaining fully God). He took on our limitations, choosing weakness and insignificance instead of His rights as King of Kings. “He is God-in-descent, God stepping into the context of humanity.” He willingly laid down all the things which separated Him from us and came to learn what is like to be us. He became the God who “moved into the neighborhood” as Eugene Peterson puts it. This is why every year we celebrate His coming. We count down the days…Have you decorated for Christmas yet? I have arranged some greens for outside the house, you can watch the process here, but for the inside, I have been holding off, not quite ready to embrace all the glitter and glitz. Christmas will be different this year. We may not even know what we can expect or how to plan. And there is a heaviness which has hung over us these past 9 months, which we long to shake off but comes with us anyways into our celebrations. We feel more than ever this Advent season, that we are waiting for our deliverer to come again, for a light to shine on us who are living in the land of the shadow of death, and for our Prince of Peace to come to our divided world. I did not grow up in a faith tradition that observed Advent, so I come to it later in life and I appreciate the long, slow waiting, preparing, and reflecting on the coming of Jesus into this world. Like the Israelites of old, I long for relief from all that is not right with our world. So, I am going slow, wanting somehow for my heart to experience at least a spark of the hope peace, joy, and love of Advent before I begin decking my halls. |
