Humble
in Spirit
“Regard
it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a
cathedral.”
Frank
Lloyd Wright
While mentally casting
about for a topic this morning, I kept running into brick walls. I
looked for quotes by someone I didn't know, just randomly
clicking—came up with quotes by a plus-sized model who spoke about
becoming comfortable in your own skin, and not trying to be other
than who you are. I looked at the Bible quote “Blessed are the poor in spirit...”
and was told to replace the word “poor” for the word “humble.”
Blessed are the humble in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom...” None
of these produced words in me. I was about to give up and not write
today, when I remembered yesterday's Facebook post from my neighbor,
Marcia, who's in Berlin, Germany right now. She had cooked
chicken and lentils for dinner. On a whim, I desperately googled
quotes about chicken and lentils, and the very first offering was
this Frank Lloyd Wright quote about humility. Whew! Some days Spirit
just yanks me around.
So, let's think about
humility. It means being comfortable in your own body—not envying
other body-types, not feeling shame about your own, but being
grateful for and curious about the soul that lives within it. C.S. Lewis said this about
it: “What I call my 'self' is hardly a person at all. It's mainly a
meeting place for various natural forces, desires, and fears,
etc, some of which come from my ancestors, and some from my
education, and some perhaps from devils. The self you were really
intended to be lives not from nature, but from God.” We are who we
are---children of God.
Being humble means that
you do not consider some things to be beneath you; that you do not
hold yourself out as somehow exceptional. I've just read a
book about a famous painter, who, before he was famous, worked as a
handyman. He spent a considerable amount of time cleaning up other
people's messes, their homes, sometimes their bodies and their lives.
Whatever needed to be done, he did, and in doing so, he learned how
to authentically represent life—its color, its light and darkness,
its messiness—in his art. Frank Lloyd Wright designed some
incredibly unique spaces—and apparently, a chicken house.
Humility does not mean
shame. It means digging in, getting your hands dirty, and following
Spirit's lead wherever She takes you.
In the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment