It occurs to me that those who meditate on the uncreated Tao that cannot be spoken, and those who innocently venerate a saint, are both seeing the same Light. For the Heavenly Light is alive; it is neither reflected nor refracted in compatible souls, but rather lives and dwells in them, and shines forth from them again with the same freshness as when it first shone into creation.
How many of us would have thought of God on our own, and how well would we have known the Holy One without the Holy Ones? It does happen that the Light breaks into a soul directly from beyond, I believe. But more often it jumps from soul to soul, shifting colors with them, yet remaining the same Light. A disciple is not above his master even if the disciple does greater works. If we disregard one of the least in the Kingdom of Heaven, we may deprive ourselves of a great Light that should have lived and grown in us until it reached the brightness of full day. Sometimes it is just a few words from an unassuming soul, and yet those words carry with them a spirit that sets all things right and becomes a wellspring of life, long after they are forgotten by the one who spoke them.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Humility
This is an important topic, but not one taught in most schools (except the school of life, where there are daily lessons). Christians in particular should be desperately interested in understanding humility, for the Bible says: "God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble" (James 4). And nothing worthwhile in a Christian's life is accomplished without grace, not even the basic salvation. If God resists us, it won't be easy to get into the Kingdom of Heaven, whatever that means to each of us.
My current best approximation is that humility is personal realism. Obviously this is different from from the notion that humility is simply low self-esteem. True, for much of our lives this is a good rule of thumb, because we hold ourselves in too high regard (at least in some ways). But gradually the balance shifts. Jesus could say "I am meek and humble in heart" (Matthew 11). It may sound like he is boasting of his humility, a paradox. But he was just telling the truth. We tend to start out proud but not knowing it. Then we are proud but realize it. Eventually we may become humble but are still not humble enough to bear knowing it. To be able to know for sure that we are humble ... Ah, that's something.
Everything is relative except the absolute. So one way to gain humility points is to compare ourselves to people who have accomplished more than we, or those who have accomplished much despite great difficulties. In the middle ages, people studied hagiology, the science of saints. Today we study criminology, even common folks do that just by reading the papers. No wonder people get uppity.
My current best approximation is that humility is personal realism. Obviously this is different from from the notion that humility is simply low self-esteem. True, for much of our lives this is a good rule of thumb, because we hold ourselves in too high regard (at least in some ways). But gradually the balance shifts. Jesus could say "I am meek and humble in heart" (Matthew 11). It may sound like he is boasting of his humility, a paradox. But he was just telling the truth. We tend to start out proud but not knowing it. Then we are proud but realize it. Eventually we may become humble but are still not humble enough to bear knowing it. To be able to know for sure that we are humble ... Ah, that's something.
Everything is relative except the absolute. So one way to gain humility points is to compare ourselves to people who have accomplished more than we, or those who have accomplished much despite great difficulties. In the middle ages, people studied hagiology, the science of saints. Today we study criminology, even common folks do that just by reading the papers. No wonder people get uppity.
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