Special Edition: Humility in Our Nation's Capital

From the land of misleading titles I bring you this:

The St. Louis Cardinals have just had another amazing comeback victory to put themselves in the National League (ie "Real Baseball") Championship Series against the San Francisco Giants.  To reach this point, the Cardinals had to beat the Washington Nationals who were playing on their own home turf of National Stadium just down the street from the US Capital building.  It was not easy.  The Cardinals went into the 9th inning down by two runs.  In the end, the Cardinals rallied to win 9-7.

The significance of the game for this blog focuses on an earlier stage, however.  Adam Wainwright, starting pitcher for the Cardinals and previous hero of St. Louis World Series victories as a closer, did not have a good game.  He gave up three runs in the 1st inning and was pulled from the game after giving up three more in the 3rd with only one out. Things looked bad. 

Then came a turning point and the Cardinals began to rally.

St. Louis manager Mike Matheny pointed to one little-noticed factor as the key to winning the game:  "There was a voice. It was a Carp. It was Waino [the above-mentioned Wainwright] getting back out there. He could have hung his head but he came back out there. That dugout was on fire." Wainwright stayed engaged.  Every kid who has an interest in baseball imagines being the starting pitcher in that final game, holding everything on the line for the team.  They do not imagine leaving the game after 2 and 1/3 innings after giving their team a six-run deficit.

What is our reaction to failure?  Of course it isn't OK to fail at important things in life.  However, we still have to strive to be successful at the next opportunity.  Unfortunately, the next opportunity sometimes doesn't come in this life.  Some things we do have permanent consequences.  Adam Wainwright was never getting back into Game 5 to show he could make up for his mistakes.  All he could do was to suck up his pride as the would-be hero and stay engaged with his team.  He chose to cheer on his teammates instead of wallowing in his personal failures.  In the end, he was able to celebrate along with everyone else because his humility reminded him of being part of the team.  Their victory was his victory. 

In the same way, we Christians, when we have the gift of humility, watch the struggles of Christ to right our wrongs.  He carries the cross because he alone is capable.  If we stay engaged in the process, leaving our pride aside, we too can share in Christ's victory.

Marriage and the Lessons of Humility

It is almost impossible to criticize the modern attitude toward marriage in an original way.  Having noticed the "new normal" of a massive divorce rate, we have reacted along two general routes:  1) accept that marriage is no longer a sacred institution and just feel our way through, even if this process involves massive changes in our understanding of what marriage is and we lose what familial and social cohesion we still have along the way, and 2) fight to put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak, by demanding that a society that has lost its grip on the concept of "truth" go back to living like past generations anyway.

As you can tell from the way I have described them, I find neither route completely acceptable.  If I have anything to add to the conversation about marriage (again, this point is not new or original) it is that we must look at marriage on an individual basis rather than as something to be controlled in sweeping demographic manipulations.  This is where the lessons of humility come in.  We must look at marriage as an element of our identity, just as humility requires us to embrace the painful truth that we must own our sins.

It is legitimate to practice within a marriage.  We learn to be better spouses partly by making mistakes.  My wife of just over two years and I (mostly me, I think) are constantly finding ourselves making decisions as if we were still single.  It is easy to, for example, make a purchasing decision that doesn't take the other person or the goals of the family into account.  It is easy to decide on a schedule for the day that takes the other person's assent for granted.  These are places where we know that we must better live up to our identity as married persons.  There is a distinction between this kind of practice and the idea that the entire marriage can be "practice."  If you make a wreck of your first marriage (or your spouse makes a wreck of it), you do not have the ability to call the whole thing "practice."  [please insert your own sports-related metaphor for this concept here]

In recent days I have heard about some extreme challenges in the marriages of some friends.  Quite frankly, my imagination recoils from some of the possibilities that can and do happen within marriages when one partner makes what seems to be the ultimate wrong choice.  Still, the fact remains that in a true marriage severance always does permanent damage to the partners.  Pope Benedict has recently commented, "Marriage, as a union of faithful and indissoluble love, is based upon the grace that comes from the triune God, who in Christ loved us with a faithful love, even to the Cross. . . Today we ought to grasp the full truth of this statement, in contrast to the painful reality of many marriages which, unhappily, end badly." As we are all made complete by the love Christ displayed for us on the cross--to the point we amend our identity and call ourselves "Christians"--we must also look on the love we promise to offer in marriage as demanding (at least potentially) as much from ourselves.  If we don't go to that cross, we will lose something of ourselves--something that cannot be replaced.

The Power of Humility: Pointing at Yourself

I always told myself that if I started a blog and had to take a long break from it due to being very busy, I would never make a lame attempt to apologize.

Now, on to the post.

There is a saying that makes the rounds from time to time, and it highlights an important aspect of the concept of humility.  The saying goes, "when you point a finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself."  The point of the saying is actually manifold.  It can mean that the person who makes an accusation will really be cutting himself down in the process.  In other words, the message is that you should not ever (or very, very rarely) point out the flaws in someone else.  This is, of course, an element of social propriety as much as anything.  Right or wrong, an accusation can create uncomfortable tension between people.  For this reason, it is seldom all that effective to deliberately point out the faults of others.

Another standard interpretation is that the accuser should be prepared to undergo a deeper scrutiny than the accused.  This interpretation gets us a little bit closer to the concept of humility.  The symbolic meaning of the pointed finger is that it becomes an offensive weapon to use against others.  We must be especially careful to defend against the accusation of hypocrisy if we intend to use this weapon.  The saying should remind us that we may well be guilty of the very thing we see in someone else, and perhaps even more so.

This second use of the saying can serve as an effective caution to the person who speaks out about the actions of others.  However, the classic posture of the humble saint is not that of the pointer.  Yet another interpretation of the saying turns it on its head in a curious and productive way.  If instead of using our finger to point at someone else we turn it on ourselves, the effect is that the three fingers end up pointing out from us and toward the world.  This is the mystery of the person of true humility:  he or she makes people uncomfortable, just by living a life of self-accusation.  This effect explains the origin and impact of religious communities and the process by which groups of saints spring up in proximity to one another.  There is something about holding oneself accountable that leads almost magically to the world doing the same.

Self accusation is not fun.  We live in a world where the necessary process of honing and shaping ourselves is considered unimportant, or even impossible.  The world's wisdom seems to suggest that if no one notices, or at least no one mentions anything, than the gripping, crushing weight of the sins we take upon ourselves will not truly touch us.  In reality, sin is like radiation.  It gradually accumulates in us until our bodies shut down.  Sin is the same.  We collect it to our own peril, even if that peril seems distant and disconnected.  The exercise of authentic humility represents a reminder that accepting sin is not the only option.  If it is not the only option, it may not be the best option.  The sinner who looks on the three superfluous fingers of the pointing hand of humility may interpret them as an accusation.  He may not take comfort in the idea that the pointer is a hypocrite, because he already points at himself.

Humility and the Cross

The above photo is of the Tenth Station of the Cross at St. Louis Bertrand, a Dominican parish in Louisville.  The Stations of the Cross are a powerful meditative experience, and as such you could choose any of them to focus on as an example of the deep suffering and love of our savior.  Lately, I have been drawn to thinking about this station in particular a symbol of the great humility our Lord had to exhibit in going to the cross.  As horrible as the pain of crucifixion might be, we should not forget that it was coupled with tortures designed also to strip away a sense of dignity that might make the victim's experience seem more inspirational.  A man who is brave can be inspirational.  It is hard to be brave when you have nothing between you and the eyes of your accusers.  What do we see when we look on the body of Jesus on the cross of salvation?  If we see with the eyes of the world, we are relieved to ignore him and turn away, for there is nothing there that we want.  If we see with the eyes of faith, we are called to go to our own Calvary and do exactly the same for the greater glory of God, for this is the entire meaning of life.

I have recently listened to an audio recording of a man named Jeremiah Denton who recounted the story of his time as an American prisoner of war in Vietnam.  In his story, he shared how much he was able to endure as the ranking officer among the prisoners, always remembering that they were looking to him for leadership.  Eventually, his Vietnamese captors managed to put him in a situation where he knew he could no longer endure the pain even for the sake of his comrades.  Although he had carried his faith with him throughout the experience, it was only at this point that Denton truly cried out to God as his last resort.  In answer to his prayer, the pain went away, he lit up with joy in the midst of his suffering, and some of his captors even refused to do anything more to him because they knew he could not be broken.  Jeremiah Denton had everything stripped away, just as our Lord did right before he was lifted up on the cross.  Only after this stripping away was the power of God to be seen in its full force.

In our own lives, we must often endure humiliations that seem to have nothing to do with the experience of Christ.  We are seldom called to risk death and torture in a literal sense.  Perhaps this fact is why it is so very hard to be a Christian in this day and age and in this society.  Our crosses are much more subtle.  For myself, I desire to excel at what I do in my professional life, to have my contributions acknowledged by others, and to have others listen to my wisdom and tell me how smart I am.  Even though all of these good things have happened to me in greater or lesser measure from time to time, it is those moments when I feel isolated and unappreciated that I cling to so much in my thoughts.  I cling to my dignity in the eyes of others as if it were a garment without which I would be naked.  I fear that if I do not have these things, my life will become unendurable.  On the contrary, the only unendurable thing for a human being is to lose God.  The purpose of humility is to allow us to accept the opportunities life presents us with to suffer like Christ did.  We all must go through a revolution in our thinking so that we see moments of humiliation as the very means by which we will become the people we were made to be.

As we continue to celebrate this time of sorrow and joy, may the death of our savior remind us again of how much we are loved.  May we realize that, as our defenses are stripped away, we have less and less between us and the loving gaze of the Father.  May we find inspiration to carry on with our personal struggles, realizing through the juxtaposition of the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ that they are so very small, and yet allow us the dignity to be there beside him as sons and daughters of God.

Holy Week Vs. The Complacency of the World

As we prepare to enter into Holy Week, I would like to present some reflections on the core of the Christian mystery. In its very essence, Christianity is a contradiction--sort of a paradox that fits. There are too many examples to name of times when we as humans tear down what we have celebrated, when we turn away from our only hope for rescue, or when we are forced to die in small ways so that we may live in large ones. Paradoxes (or simply contradictions) are difficult to wrap our minds around. Sometimes we must struggle greatly to internalize and act upon what we come to believe is true.


G. K. Chesterton said, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." This has to be one of the most true sentiments ever expressed (yes, I am a Chesterton groupie), because it cuts straight to the most vital difficulty in the Christian life. We don't witness the true glory of Christian life because we are not really committed to living it. Of course there are degrees of success with the Christian life, as with anything else we do, but I am very convinced that the World has made the majority of Christians flabby contenders.  We don't train ourselves well for the contests we will face in life.  At least not the important ones.

In my Wabash days ("thy loyal sons shall ever love thee!") I had a somewhat surreal experience that drove this idea home for me. Around the Wabash campus is an arboretum that forms a border with the campus buildings. I would often walk through this stand of trees from one point to the other after dark, and it was an excellent place for a young man to achieve solitude. On one such occasion, as I was crossing the arboretum I happened to cross paths with my friend John (although it was a clear night, I prefer to remember him coming mysteriously out of a bank of fog). I asked him where he was off to, but his response was that he was simply out for some fresh air and to think about death. I suppose this might be thought of as a strange activity for a twenty-one-year-old to engage in, and to be honest, that was my first reaction too. Secular influences have long argued that this type of thinking puts us out of synch with the world around us. We are not supposed to consider our own demise, and think as little as possible about what will happen after that, because it will break us away from what is going on in the here and now. It might make us "sad." On the contrary, thoughts of our own demise put us in orbit with the one certainty we all have in life (yes, quite a bit more certain even than taxes): that we will die some day. Why should it be strange to spend time thinking about and preparing for it? Death forces us to give some serious thought to what we believe about a second life, as well as what we want to leave behind in this one. These thoughts have the power to transform a person, before it is too late to change.

Jesus Christ had enough influence to focus the crowds on how to be better people. He certainly spent some time on this, as the Gospels tell us. However, he never lost sight of the ultimate message he came to earth to send, nor of that message's medium. Suffering and the cross are the words with which Christ speaks to us. This Holy Week, let us become students of the language.

Defining Humility, Part 2: The Words of Our Savior and the Tradition of the Church

In the previous post on defining humility, I tried to tackle the concept as it may appear when "lived out."  Humility, it seems to me, is a very misunderstood virtue, such that we can often pass by occasions to exercise it without recognizing them.  Even when we do try to live out humility, we often take it to some extreme or other.  In "Part 1" I also suggested that there is a difference between beliefs and instincts.  What I meant by making a distinction between these terms is that beliefs are ideas that we give our rational assent to, for example, when someone asks us what we think or when we have an opportunity to reflect on the words of others or events in our lives.  There is a certain distance between our beliefs and our first reactions.  When I use the term "instinct," at least in this case, what I mean is the immediate reaction or tendency we have when certain circumstances present themselves.  My belief is that I am no better than anyone else.  Nevertheless, my instinct when I feel slighted is to lash out in my thoughts at everyone I think I should "beat" in life.  The time it takes me to realize that my thoughts do not represent what I accept as true about myself is the difference between my beliefs and my instincts. 

One purpose of this blog is for me to work on reducing the divide between belief and instinct--or between belief and action--for myself, and to further make an argument that Christians (or all people of integrity, for that matter) should be concerned with enacting this process in their own lives.  The good news is that instinct, in the sense that I mean it, can be trained.  The best place to start improving ourselves through humility, however, is to make sure we are starting with the right beliefs about humility.  Last time we tackled some common misconceptions.  Here we will examine some positive definitions and classifications for humility from the wisdom of Christ and the Church.  St. Thomas Aquinas, the medieval theologian and philosopher, argues within the tradition of Catholic thought and Western philosophy in general that there are four cardinal virtues that govern our moral actions:  fortitude, justice, prudence, and temperance.  Other virtues are classified under the headings formed by these four terms.  Humility finds itself associated with temperance as a virtue that acts against the inordinate desires we might experience.  Other virtues found under the heading of temperance may be seen to fight against specific inordinate movements, such as the virtue of meekness opposing an irascible temper.  Humility is specifically opposed to pride.  As such, it means to have a modest (or simply true) sense of self-worth as opposed to an inflated sense.

Humility is not the most essential virtue in the spiritual life, however, because it is the infusion of faith (the first theological virtue) by God that allows us to enter into spiritual life in the first place.  What humility does is to prepare us for this infusion to take effect.  Jesus gave a parable of seed that is spread across the ground:  some on the path, some in the rocks, and some among thorns.  "But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold" (Matthew 13:8).  If we attach the virtues of faith and humility to this story, the seed represents the faith that God (the sower) offers.  This seed is potent in itself, but needs fertile ground in which to take root.  Humility (from the Latin for "earth" or "ground") would refer to the condition of the soil--or perhaps better, to the process of conditioning the soil--for accepting the seed of faith.  Farmers till the soil (except my Dad, but that is another story) because they know how important it is to have the ground prepared to receive the seed and give it its best chance to succeed.  This concept is what the practice of humility should be for us.  We prepare ourselves through humility to give our faith a place to grow tall and strong.

Unlike the metaphor of the seed and ground, the field of humility can be worked on and better prepared even when faith is already growing.  In fact, it is possible to say that living a spiritual life means a constant return to this field to make sure our faith is getting the nutrients it needs (ok...dropping the plant/field metaphor now).  If we have done a good job of this, our beliefs will have become our instincts and it will be less and less frequent that we regret our first reactions to the situations we face in life.  Humility is a tool of the spiritual life, nothing more or less.  Nonetheless, it is a very powerful tool indeed. 


Please feel free to comment with your own thoughts about the idea of belief vs. instinct, the definition of "humility," the parable of the field, or whatever is on your mind.  Thank you for reading! 

Defining Humility, Part 1: "Lived Humility"

The biggest problem with my master's degree thesis, according to the University of Louisville history professor from my board, was that it was attempting to define the wrong word.  Without getting into too much detail, my thesis was an attempt to define the concept of "lived orthodoxy" according to the medieval author St. Bede (673-735 A.D.), as exemplified in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People.  My point was that the Venerable Bede, through retelling the stories of English saints, kings and laypeople, was attempting to show what it should mean to actually live out true faithfulness to the gospel message in one's own time and geographical location.  I am still unsure whether "orthodoxy" is the right word to cover this issue from a medieval-studies perspective (partly because neither I nor the three professors on my board could come up with anything better), but I bring it up because I think the idea of a "lived" or practical definition is something we should all consider when we throw around terms like "orthodoxy" or "humility."  We have to have some idea of what the concepts would look like if we actually hope to encounter them in our own lives. 

As for the practical definition of "humility," I think that the World and even most faithful people (including myself) have a few mistaken beliefs--or at least instincts--about it.  Perhaps the most obvious misconception about humility is that it is merely a process of self-deprecation.  The idea here is that because humility involves acknowledging shortcomings, the person who puts himself down constantly must be accomplishing the goals of true humility.  A lot of people do this, at least some of the time.  There are at least two problems with this view of humility.  The more naturalistic problem with it is that there is not much attraction to this type of self-thought.  No one enjoys feeling constantly criticized by others; it does not make things better when the critic is the self.  Human nature suggests that this practice of "humility" will ultimately turn out to be toxic and unsustainable.  The more spiritual problem with this method, it seems to me, is that the negativity of consistent self-deprecation is at odds with God's plan of salvation.  If we are meant for eternal life, there is much we will have to leave behind.  But we can become more holy than we are.  If we look at ourselves objectively, we will find that there is bad, which we must call "bad," and there is good, which we must call "good."  The example of the saints tells us that we must give credit for the good that we do to the presence of God with us and in us, but this does not mean that the good is not still part of us.  True humility must also mean embracing the good as a sign of the promise of a future eternal union with God.

Objectivity can help mitigate the first misconception, but it can be taken to extremes as well. François de La Rochefoucauld said, "humility is the worst form of conceit," and whatever his own purposes in making this observation, I think that his words all too often (though certainly not always) ring true.  Humility can become conceit when we participate in another major misconception about humility.  This misconception happens when we look at ourselves objectively, but still within the limiting sphere of humanity--our peers, our generation, our ancestors, or the World in general.  In this case, we apply a relative standard to our objective view of ourselves based on our objective view of those around us.  We rank ourselves as being worse than some and better than others.  The attraction of this view is that it goes along with the standards set by most of life.  As the saying goes, "You don't have to outrun the hungry bear; you just have to outrun the person who is with you."  When we look at ourselves with this kind of objectivity, we can come up with all sorts of ways to feel superior to others while "graciously" admitting that we are not the best.  In the end, this way of thinking rarely constitutes motivation for self-improvement because becoming the best version of ourselves has nothing to do with how good or bad others may be.

True humility needs a standard that is not relative.  This standard is Christ.  And if Christ is the standard, then it only makes sense to observe Christ to see what true humility should "look" like.  This is how I take Jesus' words in Matthew 16:24, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me."  When we are truly living out humility, we will be capable of following this directive. Our own lived humility must "look" like the kind of purposeful suffering that our savior took upon himself for the sake of those he loves.