First, Humility
If we have not progressed as far as this, then, as I have said, let us practice humility, which is the ointment for our wounds…St. Teresa of Avila. The Interior Castle
First, humility does not mean you are beating yourself up
as some kind of shameful loser.
Or that you are disappearing into the wood work.
It’s not you are some kind of wall flower,
Under-performing.
Humility does not mean that you don’t have
important things to contribute to the conversation.
That you aren’t important on the scene.
That you don’t belong.
You do.
You are.
You belong.
That is not in question.
Do you know how when you
first experience the redwood trees
In that park in California…
And they are so old and so massive
and you are so small and a sense of awe
and wonder overtakes you.
It isn’t that you became less important
in that moment.
You just know where you stand
so to speak.
When we encounter the face of another
we know that we are so small and we know
suddenly awe and wonder,
recognizing that that face
represents god, the holy, the ineffable,
the divine presence.
Humility just asks you to know that the person
in front of you is majestic as the redwood tree
and the pacific ocean beyond the trees
and the sun that bids it all good night.
And in the face of that other, in the face of that truth,
you remain silent, you soak it all in, you absorb it,
knowing who you are and who they are and what it all means.
Or as Mary Oliver once said: no matter how lonely,
or dried up your imagination,
or how afraid or crushed you might be,
the wild geese in their majesty and splendor
announce your place, over and over,
in the family of things.
Praise to the goose
and the tree
and the sun
Praise to the face,
the presence,
and praise to the knowing
our place in the family of things.
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