Humility: earthing, not grovelling

Daily readers of the Rule of Benedict today complete the great twelve steps of humility in chapter 6. Benedict brilliantly sees that community is made or broken by attitude, not achievement or conformity. Humility is the foundation of community.
Unfortunately, rather as the concept of obedience gets mechanised and debased into “Simon says,” humility gets mistaken for a perpetual state of grovelling.
What if humility, far more than grovelling, is actually about being earthed, feet on the ground, open eyed about self and everyone else? Embracing the way of humility means commitment to being radically realistic — “Don’t be afraid to see what you see” — a kind of holy pragmatism underlying everything. As often happens, Joan Chittister gets the matter bang to rights:

True humility is simply a measure of the self that is taken without exaggerated approval or exaggerated guilt. Humility is the ability to know ourselves as God knows us, and to know that it is the little we are that is precisely our claim on God. Humility, then, is the foundation for our relationship with God, our connectedness to others, our acceptance of ourselves, our way of using the goods of the earth and even our way of walking through the world, without arrogance, without domination, without scorn, without put-downs, without disdain, without self-centredness. The more we know ourselves, the gentler we will be with others...

The chapter on humility is a strangely wonderful and intriguingly distressing treatise on the process of the spiritual life. It does not say, "Be perfect." It says, "Be honest about what you are and you will come to know God." It does not say, "Be flawless and you will earn God." It says, "If you recognize the presence of God in life, you will soon become more and more perfect." But this perfection is not in the twentieth-century sense of impeccability. This perfection is in the biblical sense of having become matured, ripened, whole.

The entire chapter is such a nonmechanistic, totally human approach to God. If we reach out and meet God here where God is, if we accept God's will in life where our will does not prevail, if we are willing to learn from others, if we can see ourselves and accept ourselves for what we are and grow from that, if we can live simply, if we can respect others and reverence them, if we can be a trusting part of our world without having to strut around it controlling it, changing it, wrenching it to our own image and likeness, then we will have achieved "perfect love that casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). There will be nothing left to fear — not God's wrath, not the loss of human respect, not the absence of control, not the achievements of others greater than our own whose success we have had to smother with rejection or deride with scorn.

Humility, the lost virtue of the twentieth century, is crying to heaven for rediscovery. The development of nations, the preservation of the globe, the achievement of human community may well depend on it.

Riding the Tiger, Climbing the Ladder

Lots of Egos rubbing up against each other usually find ways to screw each other up. Churches, families and whole societies produce fruity horror stories about egomania and its products, from personal resentments to mad dictators. However, God gave us ego for a purpose. It feeds determination, creativity and resilience, even self-respect. Someone who really did not care about any of that would be less than themselves, and do very little creative for any community.

Wise as ever, Benedict sees the dangers and suggests real ways out. He doesn't simply say "Ego Bad" and squash people ("There is no I in Team"). One of the longest chapters in the rule (7) says how to grow humility. Benedict likens the struggle with Ego to Jacob's ladder — the place of work heaven and earth are joined. It begins by the simple awareness that we are never alone:

"Let each take account for ourself that we are noticed and observed at all times by God from heaven — our deeds in every time or place lie open to the divine seeing, and every time are reported by angels..."

From this interesting starting point, Benedict develops a twelve step recovery process (where have we heard of that before?) for recovering the person as they could be from the wreckage of our own egos run wild.

Note: Next time I get a silent retreat (Saint Wandrille in November?) go study RB7. Question: What creative contribution does Ego make to the building of community? How is it put to good work, and how allowed to run wild?

Sustainable Servant Leadership

There's a lot of leadership literature out there, but religious houses have come far closer to the holy grail of long term sustainability whilst coping with change than any secular institution. The abbot is the hub of the Benedictine wheel, and leadership is about far more than just turning the handle of a machine. Abbots are responsible for setting the tone of the whole house, enacting its life in a way that puts discipleship first, and ordering everything so as simultaneously to support the weak and inspire the strong. Benedictine Leadership is about discipled passion as well as pastoral care. Its aim is to order everything so that the strong have something to inspire them, whilst the weak have nothing to fear — radically inspiring and, simultaneously, radically anti-abusive.
How do you find such leaders? You discern with ruthless clarity the person best gifted for the job, regardless of politics, achievements or even seniority in the community. Equal opportunities? Unanimous election is ideal, but the rule envisages times selection is better done by a subgroup (“no matter how small”) of the best selectors on behalf of the whole community, to prevent the most corrupt simply choosing someone to suit their own ends and purposes.

Finally the cardinal selection factors for the abbot are about character more than competence — As a matter of prime importance, Christian communities need protection from bullies and egotists, who give the game away by their anger, refusal to listen, and ruthlessness in pursuing their own petty causes. Goodness and wisdom come first. Benedict clearly teaches (RB 64: 16) the need to avoid those, however able, who are stirrers, obsessionals, pig headed zealots, suspicious of others’ motives or cynics — quite a list to ponder and struggle against within us as well as among us!

Real Biblical Christianity

Helpful sermon from Rosie the Vicar in Church yesterday morning for anyone trying to grow as a disciple, or wrestling with their neighbours’ annoying behavioural proclivities, or trying to stay sane in the Anglican playground. It was about the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:

We have these two main themes. A person who knows themselves to be loved and accepted by God will have no need to make a fool of themselves by pretending to be better than others and judging them. And prayer is nothing without integrity... There’s a fantastic, liberating final sentence “If you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself”...

Simple message this morning. Grace and Integrity. A very potent mix. A mixture which grows Christian men and women of real stature, men and women who go on to make a real difference in the world.

Thinks: Aha! She’s been at The Message — the Bible in contemporary language that is, not the 1982 hip hop song by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. It’s rendering of Luke 18:14 reminds me of a certain picture downstairs. It puts me in mind of something else I've recently read. Barna Group (US Evangelical research foundation) has been researching what a new generation really thinks about Christianity and why it matters. Of everything I've read this month, this book the one where I've made the most mental underlinings and margin notes, so, as the witch used to say in Narnia, “We will hear more of this hereafter.”

In one of the reaction pieces to the fifth research finding of the study (“judgmental”) Jud Wilhite, pastor of Central Christian Church in “Sin City — Las Vegas, a city built on exhibitionism and excess,” says he has recently read a paragraph by C. S Lewis that blew his mind: (Where did he find it?)

There is someone I love, even though I don’t approve of what he does. There is someone I accept, even though some of his actions and thoughts revolt me. There is someone I forgive, though he hurts the people I love. That person is me. There are plenty of things I do that I don’t like, but if I can love myself without approving of all that I do, I can also love others without approving of all they do...

Jesus and the Old Testament alike call us to “love our neighbour as ourselves” (actually this command comes directly in Leviticus, Matthew/Mark, Romans, Galatians and James!). If we want to be “Biblical” in our faith, here’s another way to do it, rather than picking obscure techie nuggets out of the bible and using them as gravel to stone other people whose lifestyles disgust us. Missionally speaking, it’s a no-brainer, too.

Resistance to pride — Grace to humility

In his blog reaction to last week’s Lambeth Conference post Fr Fracisco Silva from Brazil appeals for Lambeth to be “ecclesial” rather than “ecclesiastical.” I've been thinking about what these terms mean to me:

• Ecclesial = a process of being Church by pooling weakness, exposing ourselves to grace in shared humility, breaking bread, honest confession. This Eucharistic process makes the Church more authentic, enacts what it is called to be in the world, and so strengthens the body. It produces personal Alignment, based on conviction and awareness of common weaknesses that have been shared.

• Ecclesiastical = a process of trying to hold and grow the Institution by allowing the strong to assert themselves, voting that produces winners and losers. You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs, as Trotsky used to say. Under a varnish of religious language, political activity gives victory to the winners and eliminates the losers, thus strengthening the herd. It produces institutional public Alignment, based on fear and surrender to threats and force majeure.

In these terms, Ecclesiastical processes produce Omelettes, and Ecclesial ones New Life.

There’s a James 4:6 / I Peter 5:5 principle — God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. A few years ago Stephanie (our second daughter) did a radically simple but rather haunting picture. It shows Stephanie out with her skateboard whistling past a couple of snooty people. She never did tel me why the lady has a moustache, but it seems to beling on her stiff upper ip. I keep this picture in my study to remind me about the kind of disciple I’m called to be. Most days, I ask myself “who, in this picture, would people say I am?”
The choice is ours. How do we want to be? How does the world need us to be? How does God call us to be?