Friday, April 12
Learning Humility
Scriptures: Ephesians 4:2, Romans 12:3
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

Poetry:
[I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough]
by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

UNFOLDING HUMILITY

Humility and pride are, to us, well-known. There isn’t much to say about either that hasn’t already been said. Pride isn’t worth it, but we’ll abide its slowly-encrusting barnacles. Humility is wonderful, but its simplicity is a maddening burden. Our history dictates that we prefer pride, taking a bite of that sweet-seeming fruit and finding loneliness and sadness where we expected knowledge and equality. It never changes. Our oldest temptation is always alluring. What is strong enough to conquer this ancient, insatiable longing within us?

Whatever the answer may be, one thing is certain: I am not it. Pride is unconquerable through self-mastery. The calculus here is simple. When I throw myself against the problem of pride, I’ve reached for pride. In my longing to starve pride, I’ve in fact fed it, and humility stretches further out of reach. So the problem goes.

Paul’s advice today sounds almost throwaway. How do you overcome pride? “Be gentle.” Oh. Anything else? “Be humble.” Sure. Care to elaborate? “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.” Great.

It’s almost comical, how little Paul gives here. Pride is a titan, and Paul’s loading our slingshot with these three small stones. Even David was better armed.

But he’s right. Paul says that the way out of this snare is to sober up. But sobriety in this case is not a firm shake with a demand to sit up straight. Nor is it the self-flagellation that comes from self-pity. These have the appearance of humility, but they are, both of them, acts of pride. Either assumes we have the power to save ourselves in the first place.

Paul’s instructions are few and clear. Be gentle. Be patient. It’s an old problem so best to settle in for the long haul here. The way out of pride’s prison is to learn to gaze at yourself as God does, according to the faith God has given you.

Humility raises our eyes up and out. In today’s painting, notice the gaze of St. Francis. I imagine his eyes beginning at the skull before him, staring at the choking reality of his own mortality. I imagine St. Francis echoing Rilke’s sentiment, that he, too, feels “too alone” in this world. Perhaps this is where all humility needs to start: a sober, gentle glance at our own finitude. But, having made peace with this smallness, St. Francis traces his eyes up and out. He begins to glimpse a reality that both contains and exceeds his mortality.

In the words of Rilke, we are, all of us, “too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough…” We are heaps of ash, longing for a love to kindle us back to flame. But when the flame and fire comes, it is frightening. It is too hot, too quick. We enfold inside, back to smother and smoke.

What to do? Be gentle. Be patient. Tend to the fire slowly, and be forgiving: you’re not yet skilled at stoking the flames. Instead, turn away from the hearth and take a seat at the table. Sit and be still as if you had all the time in the world. Look at the face through the candlelight, the one reaching to refill your glass. Learn to take a deep breath and unfold.

Prayer:
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
Amen

Chad Glazener
Assistant Director of Recruitment and Marketing
Torrey Honors Institute
Biola University

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