LOOSENING THE GRASP

With the increasing number of publicized chest bumps, fist pumps, and swatted rumps this month (usually in the name of college basketball’s madness), I have concluded that humility is a rare trait. Neither our President nor his most recent predecessor have been affirmed most for said trait; in fact, the perceived lack of it seems to be what drives their most vocal, respective critics... (notice I did not say their most “respectful” critics).

I do not believe that strong leadership and lacking humility must be simultaneous (note: see previous Intramuralist references to M.L. King, Jr., Mother Teresa, and T. Dungy). I also remain unsure if true humility is detectable - as the truly humble would avoid any Pharisaic articulation of their unostentatious behavior.

But I am wondering today if most of the people on this planet actually consider humility a strength. Is that something you are teaching your children? Or something in yourself that you value?

After all, if someone slaps your kid’s cheek at school, how would you want him to respond? I know... I’d want my kid to deck that guy! Yes, I, too, have much to learn.

True humility means having an accurate grasp of who we are and our role on Earth. True humility means never considering equality with God something to be grasped... not thinking we have life all figured out... and then realizing how that impacts our relationships with one another.

I had the pleasure of listening to a man the other night, who publicly (and hence ironically) “declared” his immense, personal humility. He has now determined that there is no God, as the self realization has enabled him to reconcile the rationale of equating himself to proposed godlike status. But this perceived intellectual then responded to respectful questioning by embracing the absence of God by newfound belief in the supposed “Big Bang” theory. You know the one... the one cosmologists have publicized suggesting that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition. Am I the only one who wonders how that initial condition was created in the first place?? Sadly, I believe the man’s purported truth was not an “inconvenient” one.

To believe that God exists admits a sense of personal humility; it is an acknowledgement that someone bigger and better than me knows more about life than I do. It means we acknowledge that equality with God cannot be grasped. His thoughts are not necessarily ours. His ways may vary, as well. Learning those ways may be the key to actual and factual wisdom. That acknowledgement may be what we can best teach our children... and hold on to dearly ourselves.

Time to go... must turn on the basketball... wondering if any of my kids are available for a chest bump...

AR