10 The Moon of the Brown Leaves
The Moon of the Brown Leaves
SEPTEMBER 10–OCTOBER 7
Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
The safe and true way to heaven is made by humility, which lifts up the heart to the Lord, not against Him.
THIS OPEN ACT OF VULNERABILITY
The ninth Lakota virtue is Woohitike, “bravery.” It is described this way: “Bravery is born of the wisdom of life and death as well as one’s honor. It is not blind or reckless and can come from the very depths of our being in times of need. This open act of vulnerability despite circumstances can help us defy even the worst odds.”
I am taken with the Lakota description of bravery as an “open act of vulnerability.” This places the emphasis on our need to stand firm for truth and justice rather than attacking others. Anyway, it provides me with a helpful perspective on this Lakota virtue.
I’m wondering . . . in our day and in our culture is living humbly an act of bravery? This might be a fruitful line of thinking.
YOUR SISTER HUMILITY
Last night I asked Carolynn for an old CD of worship music by John Michael Talbot, Troubadour of the Great King. I played it as a preparation for sleep, and just as I was gently slipping into sleep I heard the song “The Praises of the Virtues” in which Talbot celebrates “Sister Humility,” emphasizing that no one “can live in virtue, without dying unto himself.”
A nice way to enter into the sleep.
THE LITANY OF HUMILITY
For several days now I have been living with “The Litany of Humility,” commonly attributed to Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865–1930). I am experiencing mixed feelings about this litany . . . a matter I will come to in good time. The one thing I genuinely do appreciate is that this litany views humility as a virtue that we need to seek after intently. What a refreshing contrast from the normal religious sentiment that humility is simply something that will fall on our head . . . that is, if it is even seen as a good thing, which, today it often is not.
Normally a litany is for private devotion and not used in public liturgical worship. It is a form of prayer that contains a repeated responsive petition. Here is the litany in full, including parts that provoke my ambivalence:
The Litany of Humility
O Jesus! Meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.
That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
THE WISE RESPONSE OF C. S. LEWIS
I appreciate the response of C. S. Lewis to “The Litany of Humility” when it was sent to him by Don Giovanni Calabria. In a letter dated March 27, 1948, Lewis writes, “For the Litany composed by Cardinal Merry many thanks. You did not know, did you, that all the temptations against which he pours forth these prayers I have long been exceeding conscious of? [From the longing to be thought well of, deliver me, Jesus, . . . from the fear of being rejected, deliver me, Jesus, . . . ] Touché, you pink me! Let us pray for each other always. Farewell.”
How very wise. Lewis singles out the two besetting temptations against humility that plague the human condition (“the longing to be thought well of” and “the fear of being rejected”). He then embraces them as temptations he himself deals with and welcomes mutual prayer for each another.
A BIT OVERDONE
There are so many of the petitions in “The Litany of Humility” that speak to my condition. It is most certainly worth paying attention to. And, it clearly reflects a good heart. But for me it feels a bit overdone. Studying it and interacting with it is fine. Still, I have trouble every time I try to pray it.
For me it feels like a groveling, almost beggarly form of religious piety. It seems to degrade the glory of the human person made in the image of God. It reminds me of the “worm theology” that I disliked so much as a college student.
Are all desires wrong? What about Augustine’s notion of “rightly ordered desires”? Is the desire to be loved by our spouse or our children wrong? Should I really pray “That others may be loved more than I”? And so forth. Well, I think I will take the good I find here and leave the rest.
A TYPE OF CULTURAL PLURALISM
I am very much taken with Ohiyesa (pronounced Oh hee’ yay suh), meaning “The Winner,” a Santee Lakota born in a buffalo hide tipi near Redwood Falls, Minnesota, in the winter of 1858. What interests me is how Ohiyesa bridged both Native American life and Anglo culture in many areas of his life, including religion and spirituality.
As a child Ohiyesa experienced what American history books describe as the “Sioux Uprising of 1862,” where he became separated from his father and siblings and assumed they had all been killed. With the remaining members of the Santee Lakota band he was taken into exile in Manitoba, Canada. It is here he was schooled in Lakota spirituality, which he would later write about in The Soul of the Indian.
Just as Ohiyesa was entering Lakota manhood at fifteen his father reappeared and sought to bring Ohiyesa with him to a homestead in Flandreau, Dakota Territory, where he along with other Native Americans had moved and had adapted to white culture.
His father made Ohiyesa attend the mission school. We today are keenly aware of the abuses of these mission schools with their operating principle to “kill the Indian and save the man.” And, indeed, Ohiyesa was forced to cut his long hair and take an Anglo name, Charles Eastman. In spite of the harsh abuses at the mission school, Ohiyesa/Eastman applied himself diligently to his studies. Two years later he would walk the 150 miles to Santee, Nebraska, to attend a stronger school where he excelled. In time he received his bachelor of science degree from Dartmouth College and in 1890 his MD from Boston University—the first Native American to receive a medical degree.
His first assignment was as “government physician” for the Lakota people at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Here he witnessed the Ghost Dance rebellion of 1890–1891. Later he cared for the Lakota wounded following the massacre at Wounded Knee.
Over his lifetime Ohiyesa/Eastman wrote eleven books. In The Soul of the Indian, he articulated the position that his adopted Christian faith was fundamentally compatible with his traditional Lakota spirituality. “We know that all religious aspiration, all sincere worship, can have but one source and goal,” he wrote. “We know that the God of the educated and the God of the child, the God of the civilized and the God of the primitive, is after all the same God; and that this God does not measure our differences, but embraces all who live rightly and humbly on the earth.”
Such a view was highly controversial in that day, a reality Ohiyesa knew quite well: “They [the missionaries] branded us as pagans and devil-worshipers, and demanded that we renounce our gods as false. They even told us that we were eternally lost unless we adopted their faith and all its symbols.”
MY OWN TAKE ON THIS MATTER
Not only was Ohiyesa’s approach highly controversial in his own day; it is, in certain circles, highly controversial today as overly syncretistic. Allow me to venture my own take on this matter.
Jesus Christ is the true light that enlightens every person coming into the world. As the Logos, Jesus is present everywhere and is not blotted out or overwhelmed by the powers of darkness (Jn 1:5-9). Jesus, the Christ, has been at work in all peoples and all cultures . . . whether they know him or not. As the wise apostle Paul put it, “When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, . . . and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all” (Rom 2:14-16).
So, in every culture and people group we look for those areas that are “consonant” with the gospel of Jesus. These we rejoice in and accept as marks of the Spirit. Those areas in the culture that are “disconsonant” with the gospel of Jesus we gladly turn from.
Of course, this places on us a deep burden of discerning the difference between what is consonant with the way of Jesus and what is not. And, this discernment process cuts both ways. We welcome those areas in our own culture that are consonant with the gospel of Jesus, and we turn from those areas that are disconsonant with the gospel of Jesus.
WHY WE NEED CHRISTIAN MISSION EFFORTS
If it is so (and I believe that it is) that all people and cultures can have some knowledge of God and can be pleasing to God without any special revelation, whether Jewish or Christian, then why do we need Christian mission efforts? Because, very simply, the world is full of sin-filled rebels against God and broken failures before God. Here the apostle Paul comes to our aid once again: “though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened” (Rom 1:21).
So, in our mission efforts we share the good news of Jesus as Savior, Teacher, Lord, and Friend to all people freely, without proselytizing them for our culture, even our religious culture, where it is not essential as an expression of love of God and neighbor.
THE HEAVENLY TREASURE AND THE EARTHEN VESSEL
Now, in our sharing this good news of life with Jesus in the kingdom of God it is of utmost importance that we distinguish the heavenly treasure from the earthen vessel in which we carry it. Paul declared, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor 4:7 NASB1995). The heavenly treasure, as Paul makes clear, is “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). The earthen vessel is the human body and the many cultural forms we use to enshroud the treasure. There is one heavenly treasure . . . there are many earthen vessels. What we are to pass on to people is the heavenly treasure, not the earthen vessels.
The number and variety of earthen vessels is as infinite as human personality: from high church to low church, from the quiet and introverted to the expressive and extroverted, from the articulate and rational to the emotive and compassionate. And so much more.
I suppose, if we worked really hard, we could discover certain values of one vessel over against another . . . but I doubt that it would be worth much. These are all earthen vessels.
We simply do not redeem people by imposing our earthen vessel on others. No, we allow every people group to discover their own earthen vessel in which they are enabled to enshroud the heavenly treasure. If we impose our earthen vessel on others, as Jesus tells us, it will only end up making the new convert “twice as much a child of hell as yourselves” (Mt 23:15).
Our task—our only task—is to share the good news of Jesus as the Lover of our souls and the Deliverer of sin-plagued human beings and allow the Holy Spirit to draw people into the kingdom of God based on this message alone.
Well, this is my take. I could be wrong, of course, and would be glad for any who have a concern to enlighten me further on this matter. Now back to humility.
AN EXCEPTIONAL HUMILITY
Regarding humility Ohiyesa writes, “We first Americans mingle with our pride an exceptional humility. Spiritual arrogance is foreign to our nature and teaching. We never claimed that the power of articulate speech is proof of superiority over ‘dumb creation’; on the other hand, it is to us a perilous gift.”
An interesting combination this mingling “with our pride an exceptional humility.” Normally we think of pride as the enemy of humility. Here Ohiyesa is speaking of pride in a positive light . . . a right kind of pride that sits comfortably with humility of spirit. I will allow this matter to stew for a while.
THE UNSEEN AND THE ETERNAL
Here is a lovely sample of Ohiyesa’s writings on prayer:
Prayer—the daily recognition of the Unseen and the Eternal—is our one inevitable duty. . . . We wake at daybreak, put on our moccasins and step down to the water’s edge. Here we throw handfuls of clear, cold water into our face, or plunge in bodily.
After the bath, we stand erect before the advancing dawn, facing the sun as it dances upon the horizon, and offer our unspoken prayer. Our mate may proceed or follow us in our devotions, but never accompanies us. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone.
It intrigues me that he insists on this being a solitary experience. I have found it to be so, perhaps because personal prayer and devotion is so deeply individualized. Also, I note that this prayer is unspoken . . . personalized to the nth degree. It is quite different from say the singing of hymns that is meant to be a corporate experience.
DISPLAY AND SELF-AGGRANDIZEMENT
Ohiyesa had a keen eye to the hypocrisy of many of the Christians he met: “There was undoubtedly much in primitive Christianity to appeal to the Indians, and Jesus’ hard sayings to the rich and about the rich were entirely comprehensible to us. Yet the religion that we heard preached in churches and saw practiced by congregations, with its element of display and self-aggrandizement, its active proselytism, and its open contempt of all religions but its own, was for a long time extremely repellent.”
Well, it should be repellent . . . even repulsive. I also note that he is immediately sensitive to the display of self-aggrandizement in the Christians he meets. (Oh my. I can hardly spell “self-aggrandizement,” and here Ohiyesa—whose primary language is Lakota—uses it so expertly. Wow!) I wonder what he would think of the internet and TV preachers of our day. Today it seems that self-aggrandizement has jumped to the tenth power!
WOULD THAT ALL THE LORD’S PEOPLE WERE PROPHETS
Today I am meditating on Moses the man. Scripture says of him, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Num 12:3). There is one story, found in Numbers 11, that for me wonderfully illustrates this description of Moses.
It occurs during an especially trying time for Moses . . . no longer in Egypt but not yet in the Promised Land. The people are complaining bitterly and Moses is dead-dog weary from his leadership responsibilities, so much so that he wishes to die.
The Lord responds by promising to share some of the burden Moses is carrying with seventy of the elders of Israel. So, God instructs Moses to bring the seventy to the tent of meeting, and once gathered God will take some of the “spirit” that is on Moses and place it on the seventy and “they shall bear the burden of the people along with you so that you will not bear it all by yourself.” Moses does as he is instructed.
The seventy gather . . . well, not exactly . . . sixty-eight of the seventy gather. Two of the seventy, Eldad and Medad by name, miss the meeting. Anyway, the Lord does indeed take some of the spirit that is on Moses and place it on the seventy “and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied.” Wow—that must have been a lively group experience!
Now, here is the kicker in the story. Eldad and Medad are down in the camp with the people “and the spirit rested on them” and they also prophesied. Well, when word of this gets back to everyone at the tent of meeting, Joshua demands that Moses at once stop Eldad and Medad, who are down in the camp, from prophesying.
In Moses’ response to Joshua we are able to get a glimpse into the heart of Moses. We see a heart that has been humbled before God and that walks in great humility of spirit. Moses replies, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”
Oh, I pray for this response of Moses in the heart and mind of every leader today, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” Yes, indeed.
A GENUINELY REGAL WALK
Early this morning I saw a fox. I was having morning coffee out on our back deck . . . and there he was. He had quietly stepped out from the base of a nearby pine. I wouldn’t have noticed him at all except that when he stepped from around the tree the morning sun shone directly on his face. We looked straight at each other, me and the fox, for a long moment and then he turned and walked away. A genuinely regal walk. The sun caught his bushy red tail and it gave the impression of a goodbye wave. Is this the “mingling with our pride an exceptional humility” that Ohiyesa speaks of? I wonder.
Well, meeting the fox in the morning sunlight was an unexpected moment. It made my day.