In Which I lay the groundwork for future posts on humility

As the days and weeks progress, it seems that I begin to be more and more fascinated and drawn in by the concept of humility.  However, it isn’t just the concept of humility in isolation; it’s also how it interacts with the other virtues and one’s life in general.  Hopefully, somehow it will be integrated into my life as I go through it.  That’s not all!  You all get to go on this journey with me because, as usual, I’ll be working out some of it as I write it.  So it may not be polished, but how many of my entries have been?  I know, you’re worried, “Please don’t write it all in one entry because that’s a lot of writing.”  Well, there aren’t any worries there, as I’m going to try and go through it thematically.  That is, if I can control my rambling…about that...we’ll see.  Regardless, it will be multiple entries, while the number is still undecided right now.

Shall we embark on this journey? I know I’m going to.  Humility, what is it?  According to dictionary.com it is “the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance, rank, etc.”  The first part of the definition isn’t particularly helpful, so it’s the attribute of being humble, hooray; although, it is a start.  The second part brings in the word “modest”, which is helpful, but I’d say it’s too strong of a word.  So, let’s go to the English root word “humble” (still on dictionary.com): “not proud or arrogant; modest”.  We still have the “modest” thing going on, but I still don’t like it; then we have what being humble is not, which is another way to start from.  How about we move on to the Latin root, (again, still on dictionary.com), humus: “earth, soil”.  Boom!  So modest should only be equal to humble if modest means “earth” or “soil”; which, while the first definition of modesty approaches it, it doesn’t have that grittiness, if you will. 

Why is that a big deal, and why should we be excited that humility seems to entail, in disposition, being close to the ground?  Now, this isn’t the “low-down, dirty, so and so” sense, that’s why.  Humility means knowing where we come from, that we are fallen creatures.  You know what, though?  We start two places, the second place is the fact that God has bestowed His Grace upon us, in order to reconcile us to Him.  The more we respond to this gift of Grace with Faith, the more we understand about how destitute we would be without His Grace.  If we understand that, we understand that where ever God calls us to is a blessing.  Even when we are in negative situations that bring us down, whether through the causation of other people, natural events, or even through the influence of Satan, we always need to do our best to remember that we could be in a much worse place: without the Graces that God provides and unable to enter Heaven, thus being unable to enter into the Divine Life of the Holy Trinity.

That Grace also enables us to realize humility in a heightened sense:  the understanding that while we start out fallen creatures, God provides us the Grace as well as the knowledge that He has created us with unique capabilities and gifts because of who He is.  We are called to recognize those capabilities, gifts, and talents, using them to show the Glory of God to all people, thus putting them to their proper use.  So, when we are denigrating ourselves and abilities, we are denigrating God’s gifts to us; we are called to develop ourselves and these abilities, knowing they are not ours, but that we are stewards.  It is this mentality of stewardship that keeps us from being arrogant and egotistical. 

This Grace infused humility allows us to grow in humility, faith, hope, love, obedience, everything in life.  I’m so looking forward to exploring this subject and growing in my understanding of it.  I realize you may think this was a slow start, but I felt I really had to lay the groundwork, at least for myself.  As many times, I'm ending with a song: Everything and Nothing by Matt Maher.  God Bless you all.