Rooted & Grounded in Humility
The Via Creativa—Rooted & Grounded
Rooted and Grounded in Humility
Psalm 8 “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
Mark 10:13-16 “…whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child…”
Tonight’s theme may seem a little redundant—being rooted and grounded in humility—because the root of the word “humility” is “humus” or earth. So, we are considering being rooted and grounded in what we are. Seems a little strange doesn’t it?
Why would we want to be rooted and grounded in humility? Humility sounds awfully close to humiliation, to being shamed, brought down a peg or two. And who wants that? But what if humility is a doorway to thankfulness?
Let’s see if we can unpack this a little more. Take a breath, just a simple breath. As you do that do you realize all that is going on in your body? Oxygen is flowing into blood cells, lungs are expanding, your chest is moving, your heart is beating. These and a thousand other things are going on with every simple breath. Every breath reminds us that we are not in control, but that life is working. There is a grace that keeps things moving, living, going forward. But only the humble notice.
And that is reason enough to want to be rooted and grounded in humility. Humility takes the ego out of the center of our world and makes room for the miraculous things that are going on within us and around us all the time. When we live with humility, we can acknowledge that we are not the center of the universe. And then the world opens its doors and magic can dance into our lives.
Naturalist Rachel Carson wrote about this in her book, A Sense of Wonder. She writes:
A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last through life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
Maybe this is why Jesus said we had to become like children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Who is more humble than a child?
Only in humility can we receive the gifts of life’s mysterious joy and grace. It is largely a matter of becoming receptive to what lies all around you. It is learning again to use your eyes, ears, nostrils, and fingertips, opening the disused channels of sensory impression. For most of us, knowledge of our world comes largely through sight, yet we look about with such unseeing eyes that we are partially blind. Humility knows there is much to be taught, much to see and discover.
I have had friends decline to return to places where we have enjoyed camping out together because, they said, “they had already been there.” As though the river had nothing else to reveal of its beauty and mystery. Again, I reference Rachel Carson who asks, What is the value of preserving and strengthening this sense of awe and wonder, this recognition of something beyond the boundaries of human existence? Is the exploration of the natural world just a pleasant way to pass the golden hours of childhood or is there something deeper?
I am sure there is something much deeper, something lasting and significant. Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beautiful mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.
Only when we are rooted and grounded in humility can we receive the ordinary gifts of the natural world. My favorite hymn, or close to my favorite, is For the Beauty of the Earth. In simple verse and imagery, the hymn proclaims the richness of the experience of being alive in the moment, open to all that is that we do not create or control. For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies; For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night, hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon, and stars of light; For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and mind’s delight, for the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight…Lord of all to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.
It is all holy; it is all miracle; it is all beautiful. As we rest in humility, we are delivered from the prison of boredom whose anthem is “been there, done that.”
Humble people experience life as a gift. I have always been touched by the words of Annie Dillard who recounts a game she enjoyed as a child where she would hide a penny along a stretch of sidewalk on the street where she lived. Then she would take a piece of chalk and starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. She would write: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. She says that it always excited her at the thought of the first lucky passer-by who would receive, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe.
Then she writes: There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But—and this is the point—who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kit paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a person is so malnourished and fatigued that he will not stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.
“Cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity…” That is what being rooted and grounded in humility allow to happen in our lives. Humility brings excitement to our days. E.G. Actor Jim Nabors worked his way into the hearts of Americans as Gomer Pyle, a young Marine who could always be surprised by what life brought to him. “Shazam, shazam, shazam!” was his signature exclamation. He was a simple country boy, fresh off the farm, humble to his core, and he could be so excited by such ordinary things.
We often think of humility in a negative light. The person who is humble has no power, is subservient, always at the command of others. And certainly, that is true in many instances in life. But when we think about being rooted and grounded in humility it is not about putting ourselves down or pushing our lives into an inferior place. Rather it is about being our authentic selves, the self we were when we were young and could still be surprised and mystified. It was a humility that did not require that we be the center of the universe; we could simply be, and our authentic self was permitted to flourish. That is what happens when we root and ground ourselves in humility. We can stop playing the game of “look at me,” and instead enjoy the invitation to simply, “look.” As poet Mary Oliver says, “Somedays I only need to stand still to be blessed.”
Annie Dillard says, “If we are blinded by darkness, we are also blinded by light.” Could that be descriptive of our world, so affected by the Enlightenment that we have made no room for mystery, for not knowing, for being still and small and even afraid because we are humble enough to acknowledge that we do not know everything?
Psalm 8 is one of the loveliest poems in the entire Psalter. I believe it was written by a person who was rooted and grounded in humility and thus was blessed by the majesty of the creation he saw around himself. “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” He was in awe of what God had done in creating his life: “Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor and given them dominion over all.” What else could he do but exclaim his deep joy with these words: “Of Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
When we are rooted and grounded in humility, we are aware of the right order of things and we can rejoice that we are part of it all. It is, truly, amazing grace that humility allows us to discover. Jubilee Asheville had two wonderful musical selections on Sunday. Both songs pointed to the gift that humility brings. One of them spoke of the beautiful mess we are and how “honest cries of breaking hearts are better than a hallelujah sometimes.” The other said: Don’t take your life for granted. Why don’t you hold on tight to what you have been handed? You don’t know how long it will last.”
Humility…being rooted and grounded in it allows us to live our most authentic life. Oh Yeah!
Chris Andrews (2/22/21)