Blessed Hiddenness
For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:3
You are a small flower in a very big forest. You don't need to be famous. You don't need to stand out. You touch God in your hiddenness. Do your good work. Help others. Love yourself, too. Be modest. No need to be flashy. Be mindful and compassionate. Your quiet assurance is a blessing. It is enough to be hidden in Christ.
Colossians 3:3
You are a small flower in a very big forest. You don't need to be famous. You don't need to stand out. You touch God in your hiddenness. Do your good work. Help others. Love yourself, too. Be modest. No need to be flashy. Be mindful and compassionate. Your quiet assurance is a blessing. It is enough to be hidden in Christ.
Don't Claim Any Great
Work to be Your Own
"And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home."
— Wendell Berry in The Unforeseen Wilderness
"The word humility is perhaps not in tune with our times, but what it means is: don't claim any great work to be your own. It's very sound advice. For any great work done to help humanity, personal ambition has to be put out. These are the conditions: no hunger for personal profit, personal prestige, or personal power. These stand in the way of the highest results coming through us."
— Eknath Easwaran in How to End Suffering by Dolores Wood
"Humility is not one virtue among others, but an attitude by which we stand on the ground alongside things. From this position we can be reconciled with all things and begin a truly cosmic democracy."
— Leonardo Boff in Living the Wisdom of St. Francis by Wayne Simsic
The Humble Heart
My favorite people are humble. They avoid self-promotion and a craving for attention. They are quietly assured, and I feel comfortable around them.
Vicki Zakrzewski, the education director of the Greater Good Science Center, puts it well:
"When I meet someone who radiates humility, my shoulders relax, my heart beats a little more quietly, and something inside me lets go."
If they are famous at all, they are famous in a non-flamboyant way. They are famous to shuffling men who smile while crossing the street, and to sticky children in grocery lines - famous because they smiled back.*
Self-promotion builds walls, neglects interdependence, fosters envy, and makes a god of the ego, all under the pretense of celebrating personal "achievements."
Humility breaks down barriers, awakens interdependence, fosters beloved community, and encourages trust in a wider Love, where all personal achievements are woven into a single whole.
This is why open and relational (process) theologians need to be careful about too much self-promotion. We can share our ideas, but we need avoid a craving for personal recognition. The craving is off-putting to others and painful to God, one of whose names is the Deep Humility.
Famous
BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
Naomi Shihab Nye, "Famous" from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye, copyright © 1995. Used with permission of Far Corner Books. Source: Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)
Humble People Don't Boast,
They Listen
Humble people don’t feel the impetus to boast about themselves but instead, let their actions speak for their ideals. To be humble is not to think less of oneself, but to think of oneself less...They don’t feel the need to cast themselves before others just to show them how much they know. Instead, humble people realize that nobody cares how much they know until those people know how much they're cared for.
They Listen
There’s nothing more annoying that being in a conversation with somebody who you can just tell is dying to get his or her words in. When you see their mental gears spinning, it’s a sign they’re not listening but rather waiting to speak. Why? Because they believe that what they have to say is more valuable than listening to you. In other words, they're placing their self-interest first.
Humble people, however, actively listen to others before summarizing the conversation. Moreover, humble people don’t try to dominate a conversation or talk over people. They’re eager to understand others because they’re curious.
They Start Sentences with "You" rather than "I"
Humble people put others at the forefront of their thoughts. Humble people brag about others, while the prideful people brag about themselves.
- Jeff Boss, 13 Habits of Humble People, Forbes Magazine, March 1, 2015
They Listen
There’s nothing more annoying that being in a conversation with somebody who you can just tell is dying to get his or her words in. When you see their mental gears spinning, it’s a sign they’re not listening but rather waiting to speak. Why? Because they believe that what they have to say is more valuable than listening to you. In other words, they're placing their self-interest first.
Humble people, however, actively listen to others before summarizing the conversation. Moreover, humble people don’t try to dominate a conversation or talk over people. They’re eager to understand others because they’re curious.
They Start Sentences with "You" rather than "I"
Humble people put others at the forefront of their thoughts. Humble people brag about others, while the prideful people brag about themselves.
- Jeff Boss, 13 Habits of Humble People, Forbes Magazine, March 1, 2015
Divine Humility
"Our culture places so much value on external accomplishments, appearance, and self-aggrandizement—all things that are ephemeral at best—that even a small display of this quiet virtue can make one feel like a drowning man coming up for air."
I miss humility and maybe you do, too. I miss people who do good things in the world without needing to be noticed or recognized. People who can be famous like a pulley, or a buttonhole, not because they need to be "liked" on Facebook but because they do what they can do, quietly, without needing acclaim.
Humility is open and relational. It is a refusal to claim any great work as your own or to seek personal prestige. It is not one virtue among others but rather an attitude toward life that can foster other virtues: hope, compassion, playfulness, humor, courage, and wonder. Humility is grounded in a recognition of our complete dependence on other things and in our desire to live in harmony with others.
The opposite of humility is excessive self-promotion, rooted in a desire to be flattered. This desire is everywhere in our culture. For my part I see it in politics, in culture, in the marketplace, and in people who write books and articles on theology but are always in the business of promoting their work so that they can be recognized by name. I see it in myself and, for that matter, in this website.
When the need to be flattered becomes a central organizing principle of our lives, it becomes a false god in our lives and we fall into idolatry. As a Christian I am troubled by this, especially when I see it in myself.
To be a Christian is to share in the journey of Jesus. The journey is not about growing in prestige but rather by growing in love. We grow in love to the degree that individual egos are subordinated to a greater good: the building of community on earth as it is in heaven and contributing to the life of God. To the humble heart, life is no longer about "me" but about something more beautiful: beloved community and the God of love.
In open and relational theology, the God of love is not a monarch in the sky or a king on a throne seeking approval. God doesn't need to be "liked" on Facebook or even recognized at all, except if such recognition helps us grow in humility and love for others.
The purpose of loving God is not to flatter God or to protect God's feelings. God is not vain or jealous. It is to appreciate a larger context for life in which all are connected and worthy of respect and care.
This is one reason God is hidden to us. If God were a thing among things or an object among objects, we might place this object on a pedestal and make a king of it. We might flatter God and then feel at ease seeking flattery as God seeks flattery.
Open and relational theology invites us to give our hearts to One whose heart is enriched, not by being worshiped as a king, but by being with the world in loving ways. Just as truly nurturant parent doesn't need to be flattered, so the nurturant God doesn't need flattery.
Might it help us all if we gave ourselves to this humble spirit and relinquished our need to be recognized? Truth be told, we cannot really make ourselves humble. To aim at humility as a goal is to miss the mark. But with grace we can let humility happen in us.
The more we understand how interconnected things are, the more we appreciate One in whom we live and move and have our being, the more we seek meaningful community without jealousy and envy, the more humility emerges in our hearts.
Failure and humiliation can help, too. We do not will them, but the fact of the matter is that, when they occur, we are more prone to walk in the way of humility, with a humble heart. With this heart we touch the deep, the holy, the humble One. We are quietly assured.
Humility is open and relational. It is a refusal to claim any great work as your own or to seek personal prestige. It is not one virtue among others but rather an attitude toward life that can foster other virtues: hope, compassion, playfulness, humor, courage, and wonder. Humility is grounded in a recognition of our complete dependence on other things and in our desire to live in harmony with others.
The opposite of humility is excessive self-promotion, rooted in a desire to be flattered. This desire is everywhere in our culture. For my part I see it in politics, in culture, in the marketplace, and in people who write books and articles on theology but are always in the business of promoting their work so that they can be recognized by name. I see it in myself and, for that matter, in this website.
When the need to be flattered becomes a central organizing principle of our lives, it becomes a false god in our lives and we fall into idolatry. As a Christian I am troubled by this, especially when I see it in myself.
To be a Christian is to share in the journey of Jesus. The journey is not about growing in prestige but rather by growing in love. We grow in love to the degree that individual egos are subordinated to a greater good: the building of community on earth as it is in heaven and contributing to the life of God. To the humble heart, life is no longer about "me" but about something more beautiful: beloved community and the God of love.
In open and relational theology, the God of love is not a monarch in the sky or a king on a throne seeking approval. God doesn't need to be "liked" on Facebook or even recognized at all, except if such recognition helps us grow in humility and love for others.
The purpose of loving God is not to flatter God or to protect God's feelings. God is not vain or jealous. It is to appreciate a larger context for life in which all are connected and worthy of respect and care.
This is one reason God is hidden to us. If God were a thing among things or an object among objects, we might place this object on a pedestal and make a king of it. We might flatter God and then feel at ease seeking flattery as God seeks flattery.
Open and relational theology invites us to give our hearts to One whose heart is enriched, not by being worshiped as a king, but by being with the world in loving ways. Just as truly nurturant parent doesn't need to be flattered, so the nurturant God doesn't need flattery.
Might it help us all if we gave ourselves to this humble spirit and relinquished our need to be recognized? Truth be told, we cannot really make ourselves humble. To aim at humility as a goal is to miss the mark. But with grace we can let humility happen in us.
The more we understand how interconnected things are, the more we appreciate One in whom we live and move and have our being, the more we seek meaningful community without jealousy and envy, the more humility emerges in our hearts.
Failure and humiliation can help, too. We do not will them, but the fact of the matter is that, when they occur, we are more prone to walk in the way of humility, with a humble heart. With this heart we touch the deep, the holy, the humble One. We are quietly assured.
Humility and Community
Humility seems elementary, even negligible, until we look at the abundance of things that it makes possible. It is a doorway to beauty, truth, and life's inexhaustible sweetness. It allows us to learn from everything and everybody. It brings about reconciliation; we cannot build community without it. As social media and the contemporary information deluge draw forth what Lama Marut calls an "unprecedented exaltation of the ego," humility helps us to let go of the stories we tell about ourselves and to reach out to others with loving concern.
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice
Humble People are Fully Present
Truly humble people can be fully present to us because they see and accept their own strengths and limitations without defensiveness or judgment — a core dimension of humility, according to researchers, and one that cultivates a powerful compassion for humanity.
When I meet someone who radiates humility, my shoulders relax, my heart beats a little more quietly, and something inside me lets go.
Why? Because I know that I’m being fully seen, heard, and accepted for who I am, warts and all—a precious and rare gift that allows our protective walls to come down.
Truly humble people are able to offer this kind of gift to us because they see and accept their own strengths and limitations without defensiveness or judgment—a core dimension, according to researchers, of humility, and one that cultivates a powerful compassion for humanity.
This kind of self-acceptance emerges from grounding one’s worth in our intrinsic value as human beings rather than things such as six-figure salaries or the body of a movie star or climbing the corporate ladder or the number of friends on Facebook. Instead, humble people place high value on more meaningful things that benefit others, such as noble qualities."
- Vicki Zakrzewski, Greater Good
When I meet someone who radiates humility, my shoulders relax, my heart beats a little more quietly, and something inside me lets go.
Why? Because I know that I’m being fully seen, heard, and accepted for who I am, warts and all—a precious and rare gift that allows our protective walls to come down.
Truly humble people are able to offer this kind of gift to us because they see and accept their own strengths and limitations without defensiveness or judgment—a core dimension, according to researchers, of humility, and one that cultivates a powerful compassion for humanity.
This kind of self-acceptance emerges from grounding one’s worth in our intrinsic value as human beings rather than things such as six-figure salaries or the body of a movie star or climbing the corporate ladder or the number of friends on Facebook. Instead, humble people place high value on more meaningful things that benefit others, such as noble qualities."
- Vicki Zakrzewski, Greater Good