Humility - Becoming earthed again.

The practice of Humility – Christine Valters Paintner 

“The Fools calls us to remember our own earthiness, to know that one day Sister Death will visit us as well. The desert monks and St Benedict also counseled ‘remember daily that one day you will die’. In embracing this truth we can find freedom. We begin to take ourselves and the weight of our concerns less seriously.

Be humble is a call that might raise your hackles a bit. Humility can be used to subjugate those whose voices we do not want to hear. Or we can take on false humility and act as though we are not full of pride as a way to increase our standing.  Humility is the practice of recognising that I am profoundly earthed. To do this I only need to ponder all the ways I am reliant on the earth for provision of food and air and sunlight. Humility reminds us that we have limitations and we can’t take on everything, which also enables us to commit to something and it very well.  

Humility is really a dance between embracing our limits and our giftedness. It means finding humor in our shortcomings and foibles and learning to take ourselves less seriously. But it also means seeing the world through this lens and learning to see things from another perspective.”

 

Further Study - resources:

Humility by Brother Curtis Almquist - podcast

The story of Orange Shirt Day

Richard Rohr - One humiliation a day

Humility in the writing of Meister Eckhart

Art work: 

Katerina Machytkova - "The Pattern of Creation - The Essence of Love" 

The Pharisees question Jesus' Authority by James Tissot 

Sculpture of Meister Eckhart in Germany. Photo by Wikimedia Commons/Lothar Spurzem.