Prayers for humility
The Oxford English dictionary defines the noun humility as “the quality of not thinking that you are better than other people; the quality of being humble.”
Sometime the word is understood to mean less than or the act of deferring to another person who one assumes is worth more; more deserving or more successful. The origin of the word humble is from the Latin word humilis meaning lowly or literally on the ground – humus – earth. At times the word came to signify bowing or bending at the knee.
I work for/with a lot of people who have been told directly or indirectly that they are less than. Humility can easily come to mean being not worth loving or respecting. If one internalizes these lies one may give up hope of ever being loved or respected. One may come to judge oneself as undeserving of love and respect. As a result one may attempt to avoid that pain by numbing oneself with alcohol, drugs, work, sex, anger, or some other shield which keeps one from having to face oneself.
Those who decide to work a spiritual program such as the 12-step program are introduced to a new concept of humility. These programs view all people as equals; equally deserving of love and respect; equally deserving of the opportunity to correct the lies they have learned about their worth. No matter one’s background, race, sexual orientation, education, income or lack thereof, one is assured of love and respect. One learns that one can be “accountable, make amends when to do so would not cause further harm, and “humbly ask the god of one’s understanding to remove one’s shortcoming.” In my mind another way of stating this is to humbly accept that it is safe to admit to and accept one’s humanness. It is no secret that all of us are imperfect humans; all of us are capable of kind, generous behavior and all of us are capable of being hurtful to ourselves and others. The irony is that the more accepting we are of our humanness the more we are able to treat ourselves and others with respect.
I always have fresh flowers or a flowering plant in my office and in my home. I may invite those with/for whom I am working - those whose healing journey I am privileged to share - to have a conversation with the flowers. Consider the orchid I currently have on the coffee table in the office. It has beautiful, delicate blossoms and strong stems and leaves. One will not hear this orchid comparing itself with other orchids. One will not hear it complaining that the petals of another orchid are bigger, brighter, more or less delicate, or in any other way superior or inferior. It would seem that each orchid is perfectly satisfied being what it is for whatever the length of its life span. Soon I will attend the spring orchid show at Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh. There will be many varieties of orchids. Each of them will be beautiful and an amazing work of nature’s art.
I learn humility from the flowers and many other parts of nature. I learn to follow their example and celebrate being the person I am. When I allow myself to do this I find it easy to celebrate the sacredness of all others. There is no need to compare or assign values such as better or worse. We are all equally human with various talents and shortcomings. We are all deserving of love and respect. What Father Greg Boyle finds is that as we accept these essential truths; as we return ourselves to ourselves, we do our part in returning others to themselves. This is, I think, the essence of what it means to a humble.
Written February 21, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
Coachpickett.org
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