Charitable Writing – Chapter 2 – On Humility
“For the humble person, dependence on others is not an embarrassment but a potential source of mutual benefit. Humility, in short, makes us teachable.” Pg 33
This chapter is longer than some of the others, and offers a treatment on humility generally. Starting with the portrayal of Mary, Mother of God in art and tradition, the authors, they connect Mary’s humility with her depiction as “bookish,” either reading or writing in a book. Her humility is connected to her openness to the Word of God. This Painting by John Collier was quite interesting to me. The authors are careful to point out that humility as a virtue is more accurately the absence of the vice, pride.
Defining Humility
“Checking pride’s vanity, humility attunes us to God’s beckoning. It is a path to freedom” pg 38
The Christian virtue of Humility is a negative virtue, it’s the absence of pride or arrogance. The authors draw special attention to Christian thinkers that do not connect humility with “thinking you are lower than a worm,” humility is thinking of yourself accurately. Normally the human inclination is to think too highly of ourselves, so the humble man thinks lower of himself than others, but the core of humility is accuracy and others-centeredness. Humanity frees us from self regard.
Humble Minds
“Humility properly grounds us” Pg 39
The authors dig in a little bit more on the etymology of this word humility and the Greek word used in the New Testament writings. They will point out that the Greek is a compound word that translates to low-mind or lowliness of mind. They draw the comparison to the Latin word transliterated as humility, humilitas has the word humus for a root, “dirt” or “earth”. Biblical humility is not debasing the human nature, but seeing it rightly.
Humility as Social Practice
“In such a context, everyone should be striving to practice 'lowliness of mind,' with the end of growing in to the traits that Paul enumerates at the start of the passage: love, compassion, sympathy, joy, and the sharing of the Spirit.” pgs 41-42
The authors begin their turn in this chapter towards the subject of the book, the establishment and care of communities of faithful writers. Here they point out that the humility of the individual members of the community makes possible the mutual learning of the entire community. Humility is the beginning of a teachable heart, and the humble listener will listen and learn from any source. In effect, there are no wasted opportunities for teaching and learning. This is the community we are freed in to when we accept Christ's offer of freedom from pride.
Jerome as Humble Writer
“Perhaps humility is even more necessary to the scholar who has 'attained learning,' since as we 'master' a subject the temptation only grows to hold our noses up high. Prideful scholars are...not only insufferable, they're bad scholars, since pride narrows their pool of possible teachers.” pg 43
At the end of this chapter, the authors entreat the reader that humility is a continuous virtue to pursue in our writing, and that the best teachers of this are the scripture and the tradition. The authors describe, here and elsewhere, their inspiration by visual art into deeper meditations of scriptural virtue. Whatever the medium, the saints stand ready to speak, and it falls to us to listen.
Personal Reflection
I find the careful attention to the precise definition of humility is refreshing and appropriate for one of the legs of their argument in this book. The image of the humble man as someone open and available to anywhere the Spirit may speak from is one I resonate with and have sought to emulate in the course of my life. I'm eager to get in to the next chapter, which has more of a focus on the communal life of the group of writers.