HUMILITY IS TRUTH

Christian scripture admonishes us to be “meek and humble of heart.” And humility was a virtue that was very valued when I was growing up. Unfortunately, most of my generation learned to equate humility with both subtle and overt self-effacement. The type of humility I was taught was a directive to ignore your talents. Somehow being a good at something and knowing you were good at something, and God forbid, saying you were good at something was the sin of pride. I never did quite understand that, but everybody from my parents to the Sisters at school were giving me the same message, so, as in so many other cases, I figured they must be right.

One of my favorite high school religion teachers once asked us, “What is humility?” A few brave souls, myself included, raised our hands and gave answers which were reflections of all the grade school definitions we had heard: “Humility is not being proud of yourself.” “It is not getting puffed up about your accomplishments; it is not making a big deal about your talents;” and on and on. We continued in that vein for a while when, all of a sudden, the teacher yelled out at the top of his lungs “NO.”

He scared the heck out of us. Then he said, “I will tell you what humility is; humility is truth.” I never forgot that. He said, “If you’re good at something, you are good at something.” For instance (this is me talking now), if I said to a musician friend of mine, “Hey, I loved that song you just did. I think that is one of the best you have ever done.” And he turns to me and says, “Thanks, but it was nothing.” That’s not humility, he put his soul into that song, there’s blood in those notes, his blood. The music is real; it’s solid; it’s important; it’s special. It is something big and powerful. It is not insignificant. Denying the truth, and the work, and the love, and the talent that went into that music is not humility. True humility is an affirmation of truth, not a denial of it.