Meditating on humility has been a long-practiced phenomenon in Christian circles since the advent of Christ himself. It is such an essential virtue because its antithesis is so deadly. Pride has been considered one of the vices by which all other virtues and pleasures can be poisoned. Achieving humility provides an excellent safeguard from the pervasive nature of pride, but it does not produce total immunity.
You must always be on your guard ever submitting yourself in humility to God and man. So, since this virtue is so vital in our development in imitating goodness incarnate, Christ, we must do our best to get our understanding of the topic straight.
Humility, in its proper sense, is something that we lack as a generation. We have, as G.k Chester noted in the 19th century, blown our virtues out of proportion and into all the wrong places. Meaning we are humble in all the wrong areas. Therefore, humility is something we use as a tool for gain or self hate rather than holding it as a virtuous disposition to be desired in and of itself.
Humility, contrary to popular belief, does not mean always looking down on yourself. We have constructed that self-hating ideal, and it has become the great myth surrounding humility in our time. However, complications regarding humility have been circulating since there were humans to be humble.
I am here to assure you that you do not need to hate yourself or your actions to be humble. It can be challenging to make that realization, and it is something that I thought for the longest time, and I am now only unlearning this toxic interpretation.
Humility is instead to be thought of like this, imagine that you are an architect. You have been working your whole life on lower-level projects, designing public toilets and bus stations. Then one day, you are called up for your big break. You have been commissioned to build the next big chapel. Something that is meant to be grand, the focal point of the city. Think of something on the level of the Sistine chapel.
The longer you work on the project, the more it becomes a project of the people. You find more and more that the city council is overriding your ideas and your individual vision for the church is washed out with each passing day.
The project is eventually finished, and it is on all objective standards, beautiful. Everyone who sees the building floods you with compliments. This is fine as there is nothing wrong with receiving commendations for a job well done. However, it is, at this moment, the moment of completion and reveal where humility comes into play in the most obvious ways.
Of course, the opportunity to manifest a humble attitude would have been present at every point during the project, but I will focus on the pinnacle of the event for the sake of brevity. The place where pride can finally either be given its head or cast down as the demon it is.
As the compliments flood in, how do you react? Do you accept them and forget to mention all those whose input truly shaped the project? Or are you able to draw back and receive precisely as much credit that is due? If someone says “good work!” and you respond, “Thank you, but I could not have done it without the guidance of sally and Jim, they really allowed me to pull it all together.” you would be doing no discredit to yourself. By accepting the right amount of credit is not self-deprecating or harmful in any way. It is a product of virtue
It is always best to underestimate but again, underestimating does not mean self-hate. Of course, you can go too far and claim that you had nothing to do with the project’s success, and in some cases, that may be true, and in other cases, it may be a gross underestimation, but it is better to err under rather than over.
So, humility is about taking proper stock of your input, skills, and talents. It is the mentality in which you can take pleasure in goodness no matter who produces it, whether it was a building built by your hands alone, a product of the collective, or something created by someone who you hate. You, if you wish to be humble, should be able to delight in it regardless.
What’s more, is the humility of this type breeds empathy. If you are consistently assessing yourself, you will come to understand your deficiencies and, in doing so, become more sensitive to the lacking in other people.
I do maintain, as is stated in The Imitation of Crist, that It is essential for you to hold that you are no better than anyone else, and in many cases, you will be the worst person in the room. That is the threat of rational and proportionate self-assessment.
You often turn up to be worse than you hoped, but sometimes there are those glittering moments where you turnout upon reflection not to be so bad after all. However, those moments should be taken as the exception to the rule, not the rule itself.
The Imitation of Christ Chapter Two: Having A Humble Opinion of Self
EVERY man naturally desires knowledge; but what good is knowledge without fear of God? Indeed a humble rustic who serves God is better than a proud intellectual who neglects his soul to study the course of the stars. He who knows himself well becomes mean in his own eyes and is not happy when praised by men. If I knew all things in the world and had not charity, what would it profit me before God Who will judge me by my deeds?
Shun too great a desire for knowledge, for in it there is much fretting and delusion. Intellectuals like to appear learned and to be called wise. Yet there are many things the knowledge of which does little or no good to the soul, and he who concerns himself about other things than those which lead to salvation is very unwise. Many words do not satisfy the soul; but a good life eases the mind and a clean conscience inspires great trust in God.
The more you know and the better you understand, the more severely will you be judged, unless your life is also the more holy. Do not be proud, therefore, because of your learning or skill. Rather, fear because of the talent given you. If you think you know many things and understand them well enough, realize at the same time that there is much you do not know. Hence, do not affect wisdom, but admit your ignorance. Why prefer yourself to anyone else when many are more learned, more cultured than you?
If you wish to learn and appreciate something worth while, then love to be unknown and considered as nothing. Truly to know and despise self is the best and most perfect counsel. To think of oneself as nothing, and always to think well and highly of others is the best and most perfect wisdom. Wherefore, if you see another sin openly or commit a serious crime, do not consider yourself better, for you do not know how long you can remain in good estate.
All men are frail, but you must admit that none is more frail than yourself.
– Thomas À Kempis, The Imitation of Christ 1418–1427
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As you mention, humility is often misconstrued to be self-deprecation. The problem with humility is that it is like a butterfly – as soon as you try to grasp it, it flies away. 😉 Humility most of all is non-self-consciousness. It’s like when we look at a beautiful sunset (or in your illustration an architect’s construct) and we admire it simply because of what it is, apart from any part we may have in its beauty. When we can see ourselves from outside as simply what God has made of us and what we have cooperatively entered into, we can admire His handiwork with complete humility by simply giving Thanx and praise to the Creator. Good words, young friend.
Beautifully written yet again. I especially resonated to that quote from GK Chesterton. I need to read more of his works. I am taking a class right now called The Journey that is an in depth, year-long study of our lives, who God is, and where He has always been in our story. I loved your line that began with “humility of this kind breeds empathy.” I know you love CS Lewis….remember that line in the Screwtape Letters when the uncle demon hears that his nephew’s subject has become a Christian? I too struggle with a skewed pride in my own “humility” which is just where the great Deceiver can get at me! I love the Screwtape Letters! Keep up the great work! I will be remembering humility OF THIS KIND.