Holistic Humility

Holistic Humility

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            A few days ago I read this Twitter tweet, “I spent much of my life self-absorbed but self-loathing. I stumbled upon self-love and personhood fairly haphazardly. How do I lead others?”

            Those words could so well describe a similar telling of my own Christian life story. I spent too many years living a self-absorbed self-loathing life. I look back and attribute that experience in large measure to a deficient understanding of humility. It is important for me to say that I did not discover something better than humility to lead me out of that morass, but I have learned that a more holistic humility offers us an opportunity at full personhood that a solely sin-based humility will never be able to accomplish.

            There was a time when I saw humility encapsulated in the reality that I had sinned. I do not deny that is part of why we should be humble, but the part presented as the whole can be the worst sort of deception. If one believes that humility is a central characteristic of the Christian life, and that humility is promoted almost wholly by our understanding we are sinners, we will be constantly trying to foster humility in ourselves by making us see how terrible of sinners we are. We will likely in the process become self-absorbed, sin-absorbed, and self-loathing. But what if we discover that there is a form of humility which can actually promote the fullness of human personhood? I believe that is what can happen if we understand how realities other than our sins can help lead us to humility.

            If we had never sinned we would still have important reasons to be humble. One of those important reasons is that we are created beings born into this world with great needs that we could never have fulfilled without another’s help. Every human being who claims to be a self-made human being must overlook that they were created, brought into the world by parents, and enabled to survive infancy when they were helpless to nourish, clothe, or clean themselves.

            We might imagine that recognizing that we are created beings that are born helpless is another way of reducing our self-esteem to that of self-loathing. But that is not the reality. We are born helpless so as to be fed by another’s love until we grow ready to lovingly nourish, clothe, and clean another weak one placed in our midst. God has chosen to create human weakness so as to be matched to human love and devotion. We have been created weak and we have been given gifts that we might provide for the weakness of others.

            Within the Christian New Testament St. Paul describes how we have been incorporated as members into the body of Christ. Each of us as members has weaknesses. Each of us has gifts, abilities and talents. Not one of us has any reason to boast, for each of us is insufficient due to our weaknesses as individual members of Christ’s body. But each of us has been given gifts to encourage, strengthen, and serve one another. We have ample reason to be humble. But love and kindness and service to one another allows the whole body to be strengthened, encouraged, and built up by the love of God being expressed through gifts of the people of God. When a collection is taken it is often declared that the people of God are to give the gifts of God. So we do with one another for as we have been given gifts and talents so they are given for one another that the people of God may live by the gifts of God.

            We are taught by the Gospel that God did not choose the wise or the strong of this world but the weak and foolish. He has chosen to show his glory through the weakness of our humanity. We have every reason to be humble. But look at every reason for us to be humble and realize that he has bestowed gifts upon us in Christ to fulfill our needs and to invest in the development of each and every one of our persons. God leads us to be humble not to make us cringe with self-loathing but to help us realize that he provides for our weaknesses through his gifts to be shown to one another in love and service. As we see the reasons for us to be humble, we see also the gifts he has bestowed upon us that we might see our every need met in the love of Christ demonstrated through the people of God.

            God calls us to humility. But he calls us to a gifted humility where though we cannot provide wholly for our individual beings, together through his gifts to us we have been granted the ability to provide for one another. The reality is that God has constructed humanity with tremendous giftedness at the same time as he has created each of us in human weakness. Therefore the way we are meant to fulfill our callings is through both humility and full personhoods.

            How do we lead others who see humility as self-loathing to realize that humility while recognizing human weakness and fragility also recognizes that God in his grace has bestowed gifts, talents, and abilities upon us that we might through love use to strengthen and encourage our fellow human beings?

            I think the books and movies of our day help us to realize how we teach and learn these things. I think of “the Lord of the Rings”, “The Chronicles of Narnia”, “Harry Potter”, and “The Hunger Games”. In all these extremely popular stories the people called to a quest have companions who help them in their weaknesses as they face their temptations and struggles. Each of the main characters has a weakness that is covered by the strength of a companion. These story tellers have understood both the weakness inherent in each human being and something of the reflection of the divine nature as companions seek to employ their gifts in pursuit of the goal.

Perhaps the main way we learn to set aside the destructive form of humility expressed continually in self-loathing; and learn to pursue the integrity of a humanity that is both weakness and fullness of personhood is to journey together with one another as companions in the journey. If one of your companions is self-loathing make sure they begin to know how and why they are appreciated. Help them see that God created us to be who we are in our weaknesses and with our gifts as he has chosen us and loved us with an infinite love.

Let me ask one final question. Can any of us imagine a more powerful form of humility than that which overcomes a human being who realizes that they have awakened knowing that they are loved wholly and completely in all their weakness and foibles? Do we really believe that we are more humble when we try to loathe ourselves for our sins than when we awaken with a sense of knowing that God has really and wholly loved us and given us His Son to be our elder brother who leads us on the return to the Father? Are we not to let this humility which was in the mind of Christ to shape and guide our own minds and hearts? There is a journey before us. Each of us is weak, and so each of us need to present every ounce of our personhood to our Lord and to one another in the journey. The realities are enough for us to be humble, but now we must pray for the building of each of our persons to be there for those who will be there for us. As we journey we understand that our humility needs to be strengthened with divine assistance and that each of us in that divine assistance needs the fullness of our persons to be prepared and strengthened through this journey.