5 The Moon of Making Fat
The Moon of Making Fat
APRIL 23–MAY 20
Wisdom is with the humble.
One day Anthony of the desert stepped out of his hermitage where he saw all the snares of the devil spread out like a net over the world. He let out a great groan of terror and cried out: “My God! How can anyone be saved?” A voice responded from heaven: “Humility.”
STRENGTH OF CHARACTER
The fourth Lakota virtue is Wayuonihan, “honor,” and it is described like this: “Being honorable means having strength of character by being a good person. Honor goes hand and hand with respect and many of the other virtues. To live the virtues it shows that someone has the integrity and dignity that makes up honor. Humility waters the roots of the tree of honor which then bears the fruit of love. By having honor means that one would choose the path of nonviolence and compassion rather than dishonorable actions.”
I am especially glad to see an emphasis on how the virtues interrelate with one another.
DIFFICULTY UNDERSTANDING
I had difficulty understanding the naming of this particular month. The various efforts to translate Wihahata Cepapi into English were confusing. I found everything from “The Moon of Fattening” to “The Moon of Cracking Bones for Marrow Fat.” I rather imagine each rendering has something to it in Lakota culture. Then I read one elder’s explanation, which, at last, made sense to me. He writes, “This moon is named for the female animals. During this time, those carrying babies were at their largest before giving birth.” The Moon of Making Fat. Of course.
A COMMON MISCONCEPTION
As I talk with people about the topic of humility and read about it and seek to practice it, I find a common misconception. It is this notion that if I am truly humble, I won’t know that I am humble. That is, self-knowledge of humility actually proves that we lack it. And I see people getting themselves all tied up in knots about this, and end up having to lie to themselves, saying that they couldn’t possibly have humility when they do indeed possess this finest of virtues.
The end result of this misconception is to cause people to forsake any effort toward humility. And then they are completely baffled about how to understand the many passages from Scripture that urge them to seek out humility. “Have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Pet 3:8). “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God” (1 Pet 5:6). “All who humble themselves will be exalted” (Lk 18:14). “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Col 3:12). “Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:4). And on and on.
Is there anything that can be done to correct this misconception? Yes, indeed. One simple place to begin is by paying attention to the antithesis of humility—pride—that we see in others. We observe all the strutting and puffing and efforts to be the center of attention. We observe these things without any judgment or condemnation whatsoever. Indeed, this process likely helps to reveal hidden corners in our own lives where we too are strutting and puffing and wanting to be the center of all things.
Next, it helps us to observe a healthy humility functioning in others. These things are not hard to see if we will simply watch and listen. We see the quiet confidence a person has around others, the easy laughter, the almost reflexive lifting up of others in the group.
Now, we do not attempt to imitate this behavior—this would only lead us to a destructive outward legalism. No, we simply observe its good effects on everyone concerned, and then we hold this picture firmly in our mind.
Finally, in seeking after humility it is of utmost importance that we follow the principle of indirection. We do not try to attain humility directly. Oh, no . . . that will only serve to inflame our pride. No, we come at the matter indirectly. We simply take up those things that, in God’s time and in God’s way, will lead us into the virtue of humility. An obvious example is the spiritual discipline of service. We discover multiplied ways of serving others. And as we do these things something solid begins to be built deep within us.
I don’t know how this works exactly. Well, of course, I don’t know. This is the work of divine grace and we humans can never fully understand the hidden workings of grace. God, it seems, is taking these simple acts and somehow using them to turn us and turn us and turn us until “we come round right,” as the old Shaker hymn puts it. All of this is interior work in the deep recesses of the heart. But it does have outward effects. We begin by noticing people we had never noticed before. We start to care about people in newer, deeper ways. We find genuine joy in the success of others. In some measure we are enabled to enter the pain and sorrow of others. Things like that.
As this process goes forward we begin to detect the growth of humility deep within ourselves. Now, here is the beauty in all this: we feel no need to make anything of this change. The old strutting and puffing and seeking for attention simply does not drive us like it used to . . . or even appeal to us.
Now, these results are far beyond our ability to produce. God alone can change the inner workings of the heart. Indeed, this is one way we can know that what is happening is an action of divine grace. And so, we simply give thanks to God for the growth of humility that is coming into our hearts.
THE DESTRUCTIVE CHARACTER OF HUMILIATION
I am wanting to clarify in my mind the distinction between the virtue of humility and the issue of humiliation that is so prevalent in our culture.
Humility as a virtue is a grace that is given by God. We participate with God in this grace-filled work by taking up disciplines appropriate for the development of humility. Service is the discipline that is supreme in this effort. Solitude also seems important . . . and silence too. At any rate, we take up activities that will draw us close to the earth—humus—and help us develop deep in our soul a right relationship with others and with God.
There is also the action of humbling ourselves. In my mind this appears to be a freely chosen action of recognizing God’s wonderful, loving, care-filled authority over us.
Humiliation, on the other hand, is an action by others and is done to demean or destroy the individual. School children mock and laugh at an autistic child. A boss demeans the work of a laborer. A parent ridicules a child. Humiliation always seeks to dishonor, to discredit, to tear down. I wonder if those who participate in such actions have deep-seated fears about their own adequacy.
So, we seek after true humility of spirit and never to seek the humiliation of another human being.
PRIDE TOPPLED BY HUMILITY
Today I find myself meditating on the enormous contribution of Evagrius of Pontus (fourth century) to our understanding of the moral life. He constructed for us “the eight godly virtues” which we are to use to destroy what he called “the eight deadly thoughts.”
These insights grew out of a near catastrophic moral failure for Evagrius himself. Evagrius was a rising star in Constantinople, a legend in his own time. He was well positioned for high ecclesiastical office. But then, right in the midst of ministry work, he fell madly in love with a married woman. Sabotaged by his own passions, and fearful of them, Evagrius fled to the Egyptian desert, never to return to Constantinople.
Here in the desert Evagrius first hammers out the “eight deadly thoughts,” vices that destroy our lives . . . gluttony and anger and greed and envy and pride and lust and sloth and melancholy. But he does not stop here. He next proceeds to set before us the “eight godly virtues” through which we are, under God, to overcome the deadly thoughts. In Evagrius’s thinking we develop the virtue of temperance in order to conquer gluttony; the virtue of mildness allows us to conquer anger; the virtue of generosity to conquer greed; the virtue of happiness to conquer envy; the virtue of humility to conquer pride; the virtue of chastity to conquer lust; the virtue of diligence to conquer sloth, and the virtue of wisdom to conquer melancholy.
My interest in this list is to understand exactly how it is that humility conquers pride. In ordinary human life pride seems to be so strong; humility appears so weak. Exactly how is it that humility can overcome pride? Pride—this inordinate belief in our own importance—how can it be toppled by something like humility, which by all appearances seems so fragile, so delicate, so feeble? I will spend the next days to see if I can gain some light on this matter.
THIS CONTRAST OF HUMILITY AND PRIDE
It is interesting to see how this contrast of humility and pride runs through all the moral-formation literature. I just discussed the thoughts of Evagrius in the fourth century. Here is a helpful statement of C. S. Lewis in the twentieth century, “There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people . . . ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. . . . The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility.”
THE CHILD IN NEED OF CHRIST’S MOTHERING LOVE
I think it would be helpful to gain a woman’s perspective on humility. The first woman that comes to my mind and the very best person that I can think of is Julian of Norwich and her Revelations of Divine Love. Julian is the first woman to write in the English language . . . well, Middle English to be exact. I have found an essay by Grace Hamman that is a rich resource for my study.
Julian is well-known for the extended metaphor she gives of God and Christ as a Mother and the believer as her child. She writes,
As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother, and he revealed that in everything, and especially in these sweet words where he says: “I am he; that is to say: I am he, the power and goodness of fatherhood; I am he, the wisdom and the lovingness of motherhood; I am he, the light and the grace which is all blessed love, I am he, the Trinity; I am he, the unity; I am he, the great supreme goodness of every kind of thing. . . .” As truly is God our Father, so truly is God our Mother. Our Father wills, our Mother works, our good Lord the Holy Spirit confirms.
In chapter sixty Julian speaks of “our true Mother Jesus” and “our precious Mother Jesus” and “our tender Mother Jesus.”
In the literature on Julian much has been made of the “Mother” metaphor for Christ; however, precious little attention has been given to the metaphor of us as the child. Julian’s emphasis on us as the child in need of Christ’s mothering love is creative and genuinely helpful. Julian gives special attention to the virtue of humility and meekness. The Middle English Dictionary defines meek and humble as essentially synonymous terms. Meekness appears in some form about fifty-eight times in Julian’s Revelation of Divine Love. It is developed in the child, especially as we learn of our own sinfulness and distance from God. She explores the “intimate dependence” of the child.
Most medieval contemplative writers depict virtue formation as a hierarchy of knowledge developed by ladders, scales, or steps—think of John Climacus’s The Ladder of Divine Ascent or Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection. In contrast, Julian’s imagery of the mother and child explores a process of growth more like the demanding days involved in raising a child. No straightforward ladder of progress here. No, Julian sees a long process of daily development. Hamman writes, “Julian’s similitude of the mother and child explores a process of change much like the repetitive days of child-raising, . . . the long process and ever repeating forms of the day-to-day tending to a child’s physical, moral, and, most notably, spiritual formation.”
Another difference with Julian: while emphasizing the importance of us recognizing “that we have sinned grievously in this life” there is no responding condemnation from God. Julian writes, “The sweet gracious hands of our Mother are ready and diligent about us; for he in all this work exercises the true office of a kind nurse, who has nothing else to do but attend to the safety of her child.”
Most certainly there is a learning and a growing in all this. Julian writes, “the humility and meekness which we shall obtain by the sight of our fall, for by that we shall be raised high in heaven, to which raising we might never have come without that meekness.”
Well, there is certainly a learning and a growing for me in all this. I’ll need to live with Julian’s writings for a while. Julian both tantalizes me and frustrates me.
DESIRE GONE AWRY
I rather think that pride seems so strong because it orients all our desires and all our appetites around the self. The human self becomes the most central thing in our thinking and our living. Add to this that a key element in pride is the love of power. It contains this need to control and manage everything . . . and everybody. Then, third, note the close connection between pride and narcissism. Hence, pride is the ultimate example of desire gone awry. These factors exert an enormous pull on the self, making pride seem very strong indeed.
A CENTRIPETAL FORCE
On the other hand, humility contains a tremendous centripetal force to pull us inward toward the center, into the way we are meant to live. It continually draws us into what is natural, what is authentic, what is real. Pride is always a distortion of who we are truly created to be.
Humility is so very appealing when we see it in another person. Conversely, when we watch someone consumed with pride it feels unnatural, deformed, twisted. Humility is beautiful, whereas pride is ugly.
OUR LONGING FOR WORTH AND DIGNITY
Humility affirms our longing for worth and dignity. It teaches us how much God delights in us, how much we matter to God, how significant we are to God, even how honorable we are to God. It rightly orders our search for worth and dignity.
Pride does exactly the opposite. It perverts these desires and turns them in on themselves. When the vice of pride reigns supreme we must be the center of everything. We must have. We must possess. We must win.
HUMILITY IS DIVINE GIFT
We do not come by humility on our own. It is God who initiates contact with us, and not our own activity that leads us to God. We cannot manufacture God’s initiative. Ultimately humility is a gift from God. However, we can prepare for the grace of humility by orienting our will toward God.
If I am right in saying that humility is divine gift, then we can be assured that it is strong indeed. Strong enough even to break the bonds of pride.
EXACTLY HOW IT IS THAT HUMILITY CONQUERS PRIDE
The other day I was visiting with Pat, an especially gifted spiritual director. I asked her to reflect with me on exactly how it is that humility conquers pride. In the midst of the visit Pat mentioned a recent experience from one of the persons she meets with and felt this might cast some light on the issue I was grappling with. I invited her to write the experience out in an email, being sure to protect the individual’s confidentiality. Here is what Pat wrote:
“Katie” (not real name) was the leader of a ministry retreat event. She had a leadership team functioning with her. Different talk topics were assigned to leadership team members and one member of the leadership insisted that she do a certain talk because that is what she knew best and could do best. Katie also wanted to do this talk and she did not know how well this other woman would do (pride). Now Katie is someone who likes to make everyone happy so it would have been the “normal” thing for her to give into the other person’s wants but then carry resentment toward that person (also pride). Instead, she spent time contemplating what was going on within (space to allow God’s work within). As Katie prayed she realized that she really did not HAVE to do that talk. She could take it or leave it (detachment). Katie then chose to give the talk to the other lady (choice) not out of wanting that other woman to think she was a good leader or like her but out of a free choice. Katie told me how the other woman did very well; Katie was happy for her. Best of all, Katie said that she experienced new freedom (humility) and rejoiced in a bit of transformation in her life.
This is exactly what I am after. It goes directly to the heart attitude and not just superficial actions. It describes well how pride works in a specific relationship situation and how it can be overcome in the spirit of humility. May I be more like “Katie”!
A WONDERFUL FREEDOM FROM SELF-ABSORPTION
Today I sit and watch people going about their daily tasks. I listen to the conversations that go on. I notice their body language.
Some, it seems, are working hard to impress others. Some appear timid and fearful. Some are loud and appear determined to dominate everyone else. Still others seem to be adjusting their position relative to the group.
But a distinct few seem quite different. They listen to others with genuine interest. They speak easily but not to impress, only to participate in the conversation. They have an unusual ease about themselves. Most of all they are marked by a wonderful freedom from self-absorption. These, I think, are the truly humble ones.