One of the challenges in writing this blog is that, apparently, there are readers who span quite a spectrum of beliefs. Of course, many are professed Christians while others range from unsure to non-Christian faiths to atheism. Respectfully, I try to avoid much overtly religious terminology in order to cut to the chase without the distraction of some loaded words. On the other hand, this is my attempt at honesty and transparency and sometimes a word is the right word, just as a concept is the right concept.  At least that’s how I see it!

So, back to virtue and sin. And, specifically, Humility and Pride.

As I’ve said over and over, it’s about choices. The honest person realizes this. Avoidance is a choice, as well. Either life for us has purpose or not. If there is no purpose, then there can be no right or wrong. Ever. Nor good or bad. Ever. I have yet to have an extended conversation with anyone who says life has no purpose, although I’ve read the European existentialist philosophers, some of whom come quite close. They tend to end up in despair and were known to toss out the idea that suicide is the only honest act a person can make. Charming.

Most of the rest of us, however, quite contentedly admit to purpose until the choice is presented between purpose as the pure expression of self-interest or as a universal objective standard independent of an individual’s opinion or experience.

This can bring things to a screeching halt. And, yes, a fork in the road. We’ve talked about this many times. And every fork is just a question requiring an answer, a choice. Some of us make the choice clearly and with vigor. “I am the one who will determine what is best for me. No one has the right to tell me otherwise. My value is what I make of it.” Or, “I realize I am not the one to determine what is right for me as against what is right for someone else. Right and wrong have objective standing outside of my life and experience.”

I struggled for years at this crossroads. Being me, I tried to avoid making a vigorous choice, seeing some unsettling things down each pathway. So, I kind of tried to manufacture a hybrid third direction, drawing from the principal two that stood in stark relief to one another. As a wise person could have easily said, “How’s that working for you?” Not so well.

And, then, the fog cleared. For me, in an instant. Would have made a thunderclap a whisper. A crystalline truth that seemed to bore into every molecule in my body. Something way beyond my capacity to manufacture. What had been a pretty vivid life in my experience was as a dense fog against this newly presented reality. I’ve written a bit about this before but I’ll come to the point here.

There is a true north, after all. There really is. Everyone is free to say there isn’t, of course. And, I have the utmost respect for those who disagree with me. However, I know what I know and I did not arrive there lightly. Once the veil was lifted, the path was clear. Actually, a choice was required but it was the easiest choice I ever made. As light as air in the afterthought.

And with it in the months and years that followed, evolved an understanding of the concepts of virtue and sin. Of course, they were never all that distant because I had a pretty decent conscience, albeit less powerful than I wish in hindsight. Virtue or the plural “virtues” is/are that which pull us towards the thing I call true north. Kind of like if the Death Star was actually a really cool Life Star and it was really, really good and had this tractor beam …. You get the picture. But, being us, we try to get out of the tractor beam because we don’t want to be told what is good and bad. That would be too controlling, as tractor beams can be. And, if our will is really strong and our minds sharp, we can figure out how to reverse engines or steer towards the edges. Because of course, we want to be in charge and surrender is a really bad thing, especially if it’s to someone others call Lord or King. Come on now.

But, what if the beam is Truth and Light and Love and Grace and what is required is surrender into a life where the virtues come naturally and are not received as burdens but as freedoms?

Where surrender is freedom and the light is so strong and the force so great that we can’t help but fall prostrate and see ourselves as God sees us, warts and gifts without cover?  God says “I’ll show you how to live. Let me help you. I offer this tractor beam as a free gift.”

A gift we struggle against every day. Because we are human and want to be our own gods. That is sin.

And, the worst thing is when our pride says don’t surrender. Surrender is what weak people do! Battle it. Be free of it! Pride is insidious. It’s so tempting in its tug that exclaims we are in charge.

Are we actually in charge? Another choice it is (as Yoda would say). (Wow, didn’t know Star Wars would be making such an appearance today!) 🙂

The tractor beam, infinitely powerful as it is, will allow us to connive our way out.  Maybe it’s incrementally at first … if we were ever even there. I can’t fault Karl Marx for characterizing it as an opium because he saw how the rigid and powerful institutional church had used its position to deny the reasons it existed in the first place. So, we arrive at a place where the tractor beam is called bad or, perhaps, simply irrelevant. In our eye, it dims and becomes of little or no consequence.

We can now stand tall and know we do not need help. We are the masters of our universes. Pride is our master.

Humility is seeing ourselves, all of ourselves … exterior and interior lives in vivid color … as God sees us. And, that’s both sobering and stunning. Our value is not of our own making but comes from him as a gift. The God of all gives us this most precious of gifts. He actually knows me inside and out and loves me unconditionally. No more or less than anyone else. Just completely and unconditionally. Now, that is humbling.

A life where sin has a strong foothold is a life unable to recognize the beauty and truth of the source of the tractor beam. It is a life which says turn away. A life where virtues are considered good is a life within the dimensions of the beam.

Two more things. The tractor beam is Jesus calling us home to the source of all life. And all we have to do is ask and surrender. I spent decades thinking that was just plain ridiculous. Me, an intelligent guy in the 20th century. Either I’m right now or I’m seriously deluded. No other option. Those of you who know me, what do you think?

OK. A third thing. There is no sin too great, nor is there a life lived too poorly, nor is there a belief too strange that can separate us and keep us from the life and promises that await. In fact, the most amazing force in all that is, Grace, is just ready to obliterate any obstacle that would keep us from the promises.

I apologize. I got carried in a direction. I still want to get back to that piece I wrote for the Monday morning men but that will have to wait as I’m depleted for now.

Lord, help us to see our choices clearly and the consequences of our choices. Let us not get overly caught up in loaded words like sin and virtue but in what sits behind those words. Help us to see ourselves as you see us and not in the ways we manufacture. Thank you for your patience and grace as we muck about here in this life, trying to live good lives but sometimes falling short or getting distracted. Please forgive us when we mess up and help us to forgive others when we feel harmed. Help us to think of ourselves less as we gaze upon you and through you on so many others that inhabit our lives. Knowing what you think of us should be all we need to sustain us in this life. But, thankfully, we rejoice in the love and care of those around us that give life so much of its beauty. Amen.

Let’s take a small step back and ask a few questions about humility. Later, I think we’ll explore its significance and the idea of how it can change us.

While I mentioned the word “virtue” yesterday, I stayed away from its opposite. On purpose. At worst, I imagine the concept of virtue is treated as a kind of nice, non-threatening idea … but not something we really need to think about. Or, it’s whatever we make of it as in if I’m true to my beliefs, I’m basically a virtuous person, kind of like “integrity” which can be a very good thing  but it’s not the same thing. My handy little built-in dictionary app that I’m not particularly impressed with says that it is a “quality or behavior that is considered morally good or desirable, even useful.” In an age of moral relativism, I’m not sure how profound this definition is. It certainly begs many other questions. At best, though, virtue is the magnetized point on the compass that pulls us strongly in a certain very positive direction. Virtue recognizes that life is not simple and is a journey with a destination. It tugs and compels, rather than just clarifies.

We began getting at this thing called Humility which in one very traditional list is lumped alongside its siblings Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience and Kindness. These postures were valued as the antidote to their opposite seven: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Gluttony, Lust, Sloth, and Greed.

Not the stuff of modern or dinner table conversation. A throwback to a distant pre-scientific age? Let’s ask ourselves, as collections, which ones would we rather emphasize as important to our children? The question begs an answer, a choice. We have to determine if one set is better than the other as a general guideline for living. Presumably, you won’t hear many parents preaching or teaching the latter list. Why is that? Have we determined that there is some absolute metric that is better than another, regardless of what some may believe? Where does that come from? If we make a choice as to which group we’d rather choose to influence our children, then we honestly need to ask why and what is the origin of that why?

Which brings us to that terribly out of vogue (or contrarily, that terribly over used) word: Sin.

Ah, the attack on our modern and enlightened sensibilities! Whereas we can embrace or even just stomach the concept of virtue, many of us bridle at the idea of sin. It’s so judgmental, for pete sake. A throwback to the pre modern idea that there is embodied evil, the supreme example of whom is this fallen angel named Lucifer, better known as the Devil. Fire and pitchforks. Eternal damnation. A virtuous life buys you heaven and a sinful life buys you hell. The better part of western society has either left that paradigm altogether or is in the process of trying to.

But the problem is you can’t have one without the other. Not anywhere in human experience.

Gluttony is not gluttony unless measured against temperance. Greed is not greed unless measured against charity. And pride is not pride unless measured against humility.

I mentioned yesterday that the opposite of humility might be arrogance or even narcissism. In the classic reading, the opposite of humility is pride. And this one hurts. As we all know pride and are even proud of our pride!! We celebrate our pride! And wait for it …

Pride has been labeled the most deadly of sins.

Does that mean humility is the greatest of virtues?

Does this discussion really have anything to do with how I live my life or should live my life? Especially in 2016. Really?

For the moment, let’s part with any “religious” interpretations and look at these fourteen postures without a God. And, let’s then hone in on pride and humility, realizing that far too much has been written about these things than we can have time for here. By any definition, pride is having an elevated sense of one’s value or the value of one’s achievements or the value of one’s community, etc…  Most frequently, this is manifested as a comparison, as in I have performed better than those other people or my team is better than yours or my kids are more deserving of playing time or I sure did graduate from a premier college as against those other people who for whatever reason didn’t graduate from as premier a college.

Actually, pride is kind of fun as well as being the natural extension of membership in a family, tribe or ethnicity. We are, in fact, communal creatures and tend to trust those with whom we live collaboratively, sharing values and resources. Really then, what’s so wrong with hanging that well-deserved diploma on the wall, having titles that command respect, showcasing trophies and waving whatever flag we believe best tells the world who we are?

Why on earth would some group of philosophers or theologians going back to and before antiquity, call out pride as the most dangerous of inclinations?

I mean, we get lust (fleshly pursuits without boundaries) and gluttony (addiction) and wrath (unbridled anger and contempt elevated to destruction) but pride? What’s with that? The worst?

Believe me, I struggle with pride. You may not but I do. And the more I understand it and its power, the more I need help to fend off the strength of its attractions.

I am no philosopher but I’ll toss out that I think a main reason pride is dangerous is because of its insidious nature. I like the word “insidious” because it sort of sounds like its definition. It means proceeding in a gradual or subtle way, resulting in harmful effects. It burrows and sets its tentacles, reorienting our attentions. What at first seems completely harmless by reasonable measures can, unchecked, evolve into a force as destructive as any we know. While I’m not a philosopher, I am a trained historian and this thing I know.

But we don’t have to go there right now. Let’s just look at the less severe or more subtle forms and its implications. And, then, back to humility.

A common joke here is the statement, “I’m the humblest person I know.” Or, “look at my actions and how I’m always standing up for the disadvantaged.”  Yes! Look at me!

Let’s remember Keller’s statement that humility is just thinking of one’s self less. Here’s where it begins.

A confession: At age 50, I was at the pinnacle of my profession. Sought out and hired to build a brand new high school, the unrealized dream of many of my peers. I was deemed largely responsible for helping my last high school navigate the most difficult period in its 75 year history: In an 11th month period, the suicides of five of our students with the Santana and Granite Hills shootings and 9/11 sandwiched in between. This wasn’t really about educational theory. It was about saving lives. The approvals poured in. I was doing really good stuff and few would have labeled me as arrogant, especially as I showed tremendous sensitivity to the suffering. I had all of the tools. Intelligent. Experienced. Insightful. Effective at producing results. And so I was “promoted” to start the thing from scratch: Design the best school to do the best thing for thousands of people. I took the task seriously, immersing myself into the work, very aware that I was being given tremendous responsibility. In a sense, the whispering voice said “you were made for this. this will be your magnum opus.” And, the voice continued, “don’t screw it up. Think of who and what is depending on you.”  What could be so wrong with this? What did I not see?

What I saw, I denied. The thing that got so much attention masked an honest appraisal of who I am and the real challenges of living the right kind of life.

My pride was good pride. My humility was not contrived. I visited ramshackle camps where some of my students lived without plumbing or electricity to better understand how to serve them. I did ride alongs with beat deputies to see where gang members lived and hung out. I entered apartments of dangerous students, pulled weeds and picked up trash, became as close to our custodian as I was to our best teachers. Made connections with countless agencies to help those in my community in need. I encouraged and cared for others. And people looked on and said this is very good.

Then it came crashing down. The proverbial house of cards. I was so focused on what to do and what to accomplish (remember, I was not some modern Simon Legree bent on domination but one of the good guys) that I lost sight of true north. The compass had never been set properly and the more I advanced in the cause of good, the more I avoided the basic fact that I was hurting deep down inside and had never been completely honest with myself or others the nature of the hurt. The insidious nature of pride had got its foothold. Poof.

Now, not all people experience these kinds of highs and lows. But the thing about highs and lows is it kind of focuses your attention. It certainly did mine. Recall, as I often do, the myth of Icarus. His father warned him about hubris, over confidence or extreme pride. Icarus ignored the advice and chose to fly high … in his case, too close to the sun, when his manufactured wings melted and he plunged to destruction. Hubris and pride. This, of course, is one source of the well-known phrase, “Pride Goeth Before the Fall.” What is our source of motivation and what are we unwilling to unmask that will inform of us of our weakness and mortality?

A divergent question: What do we choose for our epitaph or obituary? Here lies Brad, one heckuva principal? Here lies Tom, a most prideful fellow? Here lies Sally, the most accomplished attorney? Here lies Barry, a magnificently wealthy man? Here lies Darlene, graduating with multiple degrees from Harvard, Stanford, Yale, you name it?

I know if I could rewind the clock, I would do some significant course corrections. Please do not judge this as false humility. I do not deny that I have put many of my gifts and talents to good use. But I recognize that I miscalculated the fallout from the struggle between pride and humility.

(I have not chosen to address here the many people who feel no pride. They feel without power. Are lost and broken or who have never experienced real love or who have lost it and can’t find it again. They feel as the door mat. Worth less than others. They are humbled by circumstance and may exist without hope, a terrible thing. Their humility is realized at times as humiliation. A true pit that can be expressed as despair. This awful place is as foreign to pride as humility is to narcissism. Perhaps we’ll get to that.)

Pride is a sin because it distracts us from the truth of our real value.

That’s worth considering, I think. We all understand value, at lease casually. Value is a relationship. Nothing has value in isolation from anything else. That should be evident. So, what is our real value? How do we know? Is it important to know?

This is a learned thing. We are not born with a sense of value but acquire it from our parents, other acquaintances, our experiences and so on. Oh, and we try all sorts of things to increase our value, especially if we believe we’ve had some deficit. Why does a person say, “Look at me. I’m somebody!” In other words, “for a few minutes, forget yourself but consider me and recognize my value.” Imagine that as bosses or parents or friends we kept clamoring for attention and approval. What’s going on here?

At the risk of offending some of you, I would argue that the nominees of both major parties in this recent election as well as the sitting president are some of the most narcissistic politicians in memory. Although Mrs. Clinton made the political error of calling out millions as deplorable, both Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama have similarly libeled whole groups of people while conceitedly calling attention to their own prowess. No wonder massive groups of people across the entire spectrum are so angry!!

Humility is a recognition that the universe in a very real sense of everyday living does not revolve around me. It is the recognition that our battles and challenges, our successes and celebrations, are played out everywhere around us and it is healthy to reign in our enthusiasms while seeking the celebrations and joys for others. Do I engage a project or cause for some perceived greater good but remain detached from the heartfelt lives lived right around me?

Will my epitaph or obituary include words like Loving? Caring? Thoughtful? Compassionate? Kind? Are these good things? Even well-intentioned pride can detract from our ability to grow in these areas.

One of my friends named Mike (I have more than one, thankfully!) is the owner of a business that employs a fairly substantial number of people. He is under a lot of pressure as are many of those that work for him, nearly all of whom labor with their hands and backs for long periods of time outdoors. Their individual livelihoods depend upon diligence and perseverance. Sloths don’t survive. The other night, he was describing how hard it was for new guys to start work in such demanding conditions. As the owner, he doesn’t usually have to micromanage but wants to rely on his experienced guys to teach the new ones. Unfortunately, he witnessed some poor new guy really struggling and wasn’t getting the help he need. So, Mike got down in the dirt to show him. Mike related at the end of the day how this fellow was beaming that he had made it through his first day and was ready for Day 2. Mike’s simple humility resulted in this man’s elevation in value and will hopefully model how this new fellow can pay attention to others as he grows. For the record, I have experienced Mike as one of the most generous and thoughtful guys I know. It’s not hard.

Well, if you’ve come this far, you may be thinking he’s making a big deal out of something I don’t really see as operative in my life. I’m basically a decent person who cares for others. I’m not battling any real demons or struggling with deep anxieties. I’m certainly not lording it over others. Does the universe really revolve around the conflict between pride and humility? Well, actually it does. I’m just not that good at laying it out.

The real power of the struggle probably doesn’t become clear until we look at the nature of good and evil and their respective sources.

In the meantime, I propose that we spend some useful time exploring not the grand questions of good and evil but how pride and humility are expressed in our own lives and what we can learn from that expression.

Next: I’ll probably share the piece I wrote to my group that kicked all of this off, which has to do with the “how” of dealing with the greater issues. We’ll see.

Lord, thank you for helping us to understand the nature of our value. Of how to apply that sense of value to our lives and to the lives of those around us. Help us not to dismiss words or concepts that might appear foreign to the modern eye but to gain wisdom from timeless truths. Help us to clarify what is truly important and to build our capacity to live lives within those principles. Amen.

It’s been quite awhile … that is, if anyone is still out there! As I’m sure I said or alluded to many times during those months in the first part of 2016, my writing was really a response, without a clear idea of where it was all going. In my experience, this was a response to a call and without that call, the writing would have been a chore or a kind of duty. Instead, it sort of flowed, without substantial effort other than a commitment to listening and of the time to see where that listening led. With the medical cure and the nearly simultaneous conclusion to my two years of regular work at the church … as well as our wonderful trip to Europe, the call to write sort of dried up, whatever the reason. I occasionally tried to find it but it didn’t appear. A practical way of saying this is that I didn’t find I had anything worth saying that would be of real interest to anyone else. Nor, did I find anything worth saying that I felt would help me in my own journey. I’ve wondered in the past five months or so whether there would be anything from a trickle to a flood in the future. But, I’ve been patient. 🙂

OK, with that out of the way … My friend Shack asked me the other night at a wonderful dinner with our First Friday group, if I would be posting again. He said this without any sense of pressure but it was timely. I had actually written something a week or so previously in response to a discussion in our Monday morning men’s group. The call had actually arrived unbidden. One moment it wasn’t there. The next: Hello.

Checking for understanding as we teachers do, I remember pausing briefly to see if I “heard” right. “Yes, you need to sit down and write. The words will come.” OK, I obeyed. And, they did.

I sent the resulting piece off to the group who processed it in my absence last week as Diane and I were camping at our favorite beach spot on the Camp Pendleton Marine Base. Shack’s question prompted me to consider what had happened and to see if it was time to get back on the horse, so to speak.

The message at church yesterday sealed the deal. It dovetailed perfectly with what I had written, although approaching it from an entirely different direction. Whatever the approaches were, they ended up in the same place. One again, Hello. (Sorry for the digression, but if any of you saw or remember the great first Back to the Future movie, the bad guy “Biff” would rap Marty McFly’s father on the head and say, “Hello, McFly!” as if to say, “are you getting this??” I sometimes feel that rap on my head. Good to pay attention but maybe that’s fodder for a different post.)

So, the message said, “post what you’d written. Maybe see if you have anything else to add. I expect you will.” (Another aside, this kind of exchange can occur within schizophrenia or between God and person or as some kind of internal debate, among other things. You know where I stand.)

And, here we are, dear reader.

You will have noticed the title. When this came to me yesterday, I knew it was time to get out the old (and I mean old) laptop, sit down in my favorite arm chair in our office/study and trust the process.

Because, I believe so much in the message contained in those words. They are actually pulled from one of my favorite songs, titled Beautiful Things by an artist with the name of Gungor. The lyrics are simple and the music captivating. (I apologize if I’ve shared this before.)

They articulate the Gospel perfectly. On so many levels. One can live for hours and days and years in those lyrics. What is dust and what is beautiful? How do we encapsulate both and what does God have to do with any of this?

What is the pain? What if we don’t feel much pain or see ourselves as broken? Are we open to an awareness of pain in others or to going deeper into our own lives? Why or why not? Do we seek to be made new? Why or why not?

For me to say that these simple words represent the very foundation of why Jesus came, who he is and what our lives are about is quite a challenge, I suspect.

We are reading a book by a man well known in many Christian circles by the name of Eugene Peterson. He assigned a chapter apiece to the fifteen Psalms that make up what are collectively called the “Songs of Ascent.” For those unfamiliar with the psalms, they are really songs or prayers … all 150 of them in the Hebrew bible or what Christians commonly refer to as the Old Testament. These fifteen were regularly sung by the tens of thousands of Jews as they made their thrice yearly pilgrimage up the mountain to Jerusalem (the City of Peace, as translated). They knew them by heart and they are deep and profound. These psalms hit on the fullness of life in all of its majesty and depravity. Peterson attributes a theme to each one. They include such light topics as Worship, Service, Help, Security, Joy, Perseverance, Hope, Obedience and the one that precipitated my return to writing, Humility.

Humility is a curious topic, especially in an age that elevates narcissism (its opposite) to the highest levels. Another quick aside: I would imagine that many would say the opposite of humility is arrogance but I’ll throw out that narcissism is the insidious and purest form of arrogance.

One of the problems with this topic is that humility is actually not realized as a virtue (good thing) in any practical sense by many in our modern or post-modern world. If the metric of success is achievement, then any tendency to humility is either ignored or drowned out or certainly not considered worthy of a lot of our limited attention.

Unless, of course, we’re talking about a new pope who is surrounded by opulence but comes in and wants to drive an old used car and live simply, interacting with staff as an equal. Or, for a Mother Theresa, God bless her, who lives a life of deep integrity, serving the most needy in our world. There, we explain, are model people. Wow. Aren’t they amazing! But, of course, that is them and they are different. Nevertheless, something in us connects with that … as opposed to say, the people who often grace the covers of our magazines or who say “look at me!” on reality shows. So, we play a kind of game, pulled in one direction or the other, wondering about the relative value of these lives to our own life and what they have to teach us about our significance in the scheme of things.

What is humility anyway? Is it truly a virtue, a universal good? Or, as Nietzsche argued so effectively, the greatest of weaknesses? I expressed the common joke to Diane yesterday that there are two things we should be careful about asking God for: Patience and Humility. Because he might just open the flood gates to give us a reason to be humble and patient, tough as that could be!!

(I’m thinking this may be a multi-part topic.)

Allow me to explore.

While I have dealt with this topic a lot, both in theory and practice, I just now clicked on my handy dandy little dictionary app to get a formal definition. It reads, “a modest or low view of one’s own importance.” Hmmm.  Before reading on, what is yours?

Pause.

OK. Is it something like not thinking so highly of yourself or your skills all of the time? Does it have anything to do with having deep compassion and empathy for and with others less fortunate or who are on a different economic, social or professional plane than you?

I’ll hazard that any definition will fall far short of getting to the crux of the issue. What is humility? Is it a good thing? Always? Never? Sometimes? In what cases? What does it look like and what role should it play in my life?

As we explore the topic, we can dance around the edges before diving in to get more than our feet wet.

In describing what it’s not, the very wise Tim Keller says that humility is NOT thinking less of one’s self but thinking of one’s self less. Now, there’s something to focus us.

The Bible is very complicated. I thought I basically got the gist quite awhiles ago. Pretty arrogant and naive of me. While we may point to this passage or that as uncomfortable or threatening or not in line with modern realities the thing is jam packed with deep truths. Really jam packed. Anyway, most people are at least somewhat familiar with Moses’ transcription of God’s ten commandments. The principal dos and don’ts to living a life of virtue. How many people have used them as a measuring stick to see how we’re doing? (Of course, in our current framework of relative truth, these virtues are deemed anachronistic, discarded in favor of a a morality that is self-defined and needs to align with what we perceive our personal needs to be.) But, I digress.

I bring up the Bible and the Ten Commandments because Jesus (who most Christians believe is the true God come to form in a human body)  basically said it comes down to just two things. Two foundational virtues or ways to organize our entire lives. Love God and love our neighbor (others). He actually adds some language to clarify by saying we should do the first thing with ALL our heart, soul and mind. And, we should do the second thing with the amount of attention and care we give to ourselves. Wow.

If you’re at all like me, that can kind of stop us in our tracks. As in, nice to know that’s what he’s preaching but that bar is so high there’s no way I’ll ever reach it, even if I thought those two things were actually good things. Come on. OK. I get the first one. Sort of. If there really is a God and God has something to do with love then I can see why he’s asking us to really love him … however that’s supposed to play out for someone or thing I can’t see, not to mention understand . But the neighbor thing? I don’t even like my neighbor, not that I really know him/her. And, that guy who is always running the red light or cutting me off? Or that woman who is spiteful and mean? Or that really bad guy bent in doing really bad things? Come on. Nice try but as organizing principles for my life, I have problems.

Enter Keller to give us a starting point. Contrary to my app’s definition, humility is NOT having a low opinion of one’s importance. After all, I am worthy of the most glorious unconditional love in all of creation. I AM somebody!!  Humility is not being a doormat. Humility is not being passive and allowing others to dominate me or use me. It is not flagellating myself so I can identify with worthlessness. Not in the least!!

It is, as Keller says, paying less attention to myself: What I want. What I need. My RELATIVE importance to others. In fact, we are all infinitely important and no one is greater or lesser in importance than any other.

This is where those two commandments are going. It’s what and who we are paying attention to.  And the key is love. Do we love the what over the who? Do we love the how over the who? I plead guilty.

Humility is a posture and a set of behaviors that sees us and others through an objective lens outside of us all. Without that lens, we lose perspective and our life is a battle of dominance. And, in the battle of dominance, there can be no peace. Those two are anathema.

(Another aside: Whatever one thinks about the theory of evolution … the really complicated things of natural selection/survival of the fittest … I suggest that the adoption of that particular form of biological analysis to social settings … Social Darwinism, it’s called … is one of the most abhorrent and destructive forces that mankind has unleashed. The most extreme versions have been used to support eugenics and Nazism, as well as somewhat less virulent aspects of political and economic philosophy. It’s impossible to be a social Darwinist and a believer in the Gospel or Good News. My opinion.)

All of this brings me back to the title. I think there’s a key here. We are both a pile of dust and beautiful. At one level we are relatively microscopic organisms in a vast universe and on another level we are absolutely important. It’s in the resolution of these apparently diametrically opposite things that I feel we can understand what humility is and why it’s something to think about.

Put simply, in what ways are we or our lives dust and in what ways are we or our lives beautiful? Are we connected to both?

I’m going to begin wrapping up this first installment.

There’s so much to explore here. Who am I, really? How should I view others? What is most deserving of my attention? What occupies my bandwidth of attention, however narrow or wide? And, oh, the traps. We can get so caught up with doing “good” things we miss the mark by a mile. I should know. We can even be considered “good” people by others but still miss the mark. And, here’s the thing about marks. When we set off on a journey, if it’s a really, really short one, we can be off by a very small margin on that compass and still probably arrive at or close to our destination. But, if that journey is really long … say across thousands of miles of ocean or in space or in life or eternity, you name it, being off by a small amount is not a good thing. (But, not to worry, there’s a solution, so long as we seek it.)

Humility is NOT thinking less of myself but thinking of myself less. Where does that take us?

Jesus said “whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.” Matthew 25:40 lightly paraphrased. Who are these least and what should I be doing?

I need to admit that, while I spent nearly every day of the last 20+ years of my professional career surrounded by many “leasts,” wrestling with how to serve them in every way possible, not just their educational needs, I still struggled with incorporating the wisdom of Jesus, Keller, Peterson and others into the intimate fabric of my life. That struggle continues daily but I do it with the perfect knowledge that he makes beautiful things out of the dust.

To Be continued …

Lord, please help us know who we really are. Please help us to understand our ultimate value but in a way that we see others as you see them, not through just our own somewhat cloudy lenses. Help us understand the nature of virtue and how we can live a virtuous life, knowing we will always fall short. Help us to have the eyes to see others as you see them, the heart to love others as you do, and the hands and feet and will to bless others as you intend. Thank you and amen.