When pride comes, then comes disgrace;
but wisdom is with the humble.
-Proverbs 11: 2
I have been struck by a couple of repeating themes in scripture: the moment of crisis that compels a connection between the holy and the need, to affirm belief and humility. The narratives of the Old Testament, the questions of brokenness and recommitment, the parables that direct the return to righteousness: they present the continued challenge of self-awareness, recommitment, and acquiescence. My quibble with them - and perhaps the reason that they sometimes aren’t relatable to me - is that most of the time we don’t live in circumstances where we lurch from one moral crisis to another. We’re not always battered between moments of desperation and despair. There’s a lot of down time between those heightened interludes when, say, we might seek comfort or direction from one Psalm or another.
Consider how we spend our days. We go to the grocery store and the cleaners, we drive our kids to school and ourselves to work, we commit an extraordinary amount of our lives to profession and family, we fret about money and the emotional assaults that our kids bear in a world where technology has dulled sensitivity, we spend so much energy and emotional space wondering if we’ve acquitted ourselves politely and morally. And we make missteps and mistakes.
This last comment is the important one: We make missteps and mistakes. These may not occur to a level of crisis, they may not be the stuff that’s best served by resort to scripture, but they, too, call upon our resources of humility. And there, I think, is where we return to one of the more important elements of faith.
We are all participants in the human comedy. And, accordingly, our humility always has application, regardless of the weight of the challenge. We arrive a party a day early, we send a donation to an important cause and the check bounces, we leave our groceries at the store, we forget to buy a present or visit an elderly parent, we snap at a spouse or a child or a friend or a co-worker. These things are hardly crises of faith, moments that invite a dire plea to the Redeemer. However, they are moments for which our faith, humility, and humanity provide answers.
A life of faith, a belief in its foundations, an awareness that humility applies to matters large and small gives us a context for righting ourselves. A check bounces, so we make sure there are funds to cover it; we recognize that we’ve been rash and insensitive and, then, apologize to our spouse or child or friend or co-worker; we deliver the present that we forgot to buy previously; we visit our parent and apologize for our forgetfulness. These examples fall on a continuum of importance but our response, our ability to view the situation with humility and objectivity, requires the same awareness: We learn, once again, how to correct ourselves, to find kindness for others and, we hope, for ourselves. To reclaim our equilibrium that, thankfully, is afforded by access to our humanity and humility. The point is that we are well served by our own faith-informed sense of what is morally proper, especially through the corrective filter of our humility, and further, by our ability to face our missteps. To a large degree, this is part of the exploration of humanity that Auden addressed in the poem Rev. Breckenridge cited recently. We proceed, we stumble, and we try to balance ourselves with God’s grace. That’s all we can do. Which really isn’t bad.
Musical Reflection - Simple Gifts - Yo Yo Ma and Alison Krause
I come before you aware of my shortcomings and imperfections. Yet I find comfort in knowing that I can rely on your mercy and grace. Help me to embrace my imperfections, not as a source of shame, but as an opportunity to lean on your wisdom and guidance. Remind me, always, to seek your counsel. And remind me, always, that I am not defined by my failures. Amen.
-An edited version of “A Pretty Girl’s Prayer"
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