Humility

But when it comes to putting broken lives back together—when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls—the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do—to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst—is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own.

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.

Do not ask your children To strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, But it is a way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

In obeying, a rational creature consciously enacts its creaturely role, reverses the act by which we fell, treads Adam’s dance backward, and returns.

Here lies the tremendous mystery—that God should be all-powerful, yet refuse to coerce. He summons us to cooperation. We are honored in being given the opportunity to participate in his good deeds. Remember how He asked for help in performing his miracles: Fill the water pots, stretch out your hand, distribute the loaves.

I have had more trouble with myself than with any other man I have ever met.

The humblest sweeping maid sweeping to the Glory of God is therefore just as significant as the greatest preacher in the world.

We cover our deep ignorance with words, but we are ashamed to wonder, we are afraid to whisper ‘mystery.’

For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem of human life was how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution was wisdom, self-discipline and virtue. For the modern, the cardinal problem is how to conform reality to the wishes of man, and the solution is a technique.

And so, with barely a ripple of notice, God stepped into the warm lake of humanity. Without protocol and without pretension. Where you would have expected heads of state, there were only donkeys, a few haltered cows, a nervous ball of sheep… Thus, in the little town of Bethlehem, that one silent night, the royal birth of God’s Son tiptoed quietly by, as the world slept.

The best runner leaves no tracks.

God gives his gifts where he finds the vessel empty enough to receive them.

Self-will and prayer are both ways of getting things done. At the center of self-will is me, carving a world in my image, but at the center of prayer is God, carving me in his Son's image.

It's frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly what's going on.

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.

Whatever the pace, run softly, run tall.

Contentment is not by addition but by subtraction: seeking to add a thing will not bring contentment. Instead, subtracting from your desires until you are satisfied only with Christ brings contentment.

The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read.

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.

Attack me, I do this myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side! If it is not the right way, then show me another way; but if I stagger and lose the way, you must help me, you must keep me on the true path, just as I am ready to support you.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

An intimate moment with Mary and Jospeh. For the census, the royal family has to travel eighty-five miles.  Joseph walks, while Mary, nine months pregnant, rides sidesaddle on a donkey, feeling every jolt, every rut, every rock in the road. The night is still when Joseph creaks open the stable door.   As he does, a chorus of barn animals makes discordant note of the intrusion.  The stench is pungent and humid, as there have not been enough hours in the day to tend the guests, let alone the livestock.  A disquieting place for a woman in the throes of childbirth.  Far from home.  Far from family.  Far from what she had expected for her firstborn. It is a relief just to finally get off the donkey.  She leans back against the wall, her feet swollen, back aching, contractions growing stronger and closer together. Joseph’s eyes dart around the stable.  Not a minute to lose.  Quickly.  A feeding trough would have to make for a crib.  Hay would serve as a mattress.  Blankets?  Blankets? Ah, his robe.  That would do.  A gripping contraction doubles Mary over and sends him racing for a bucket of water. A scream from Mary knifes through the calm of that silent night.  Joseph returns, breathless, water sloshing from the wooden bucket. Joseph places a garment beneath her, and with a final push and a long sigh her labor is over. The Messiah has arrived. The Son of the Most High God umbilically tied to a lowly Jewish girl. The baby chokes and coughs.  Joseph instinctively turns him over and clears his throat.  Then he cries.  Mary reaches for the shivering baby, lays him on her chest, and his helpless cries subside. Deity nursing from a young maiden’s breast.  Could anything be more puzzling-or more profound? She looks up at Joseph, and through a watery veil, their souls touch.  He crowds close, cheek to cheek with his betrothed.  Together they stare in awe at the baby Jesus, whose heavy eyelids begin to close.  It has been a long journey.  The King is tired. And so, with barely a ripple of notice, God stepped into the warm lake of humanity.  Without protocol and without pretension. Where you would have expected heads of state, there were only donkeys, a few haltered cows, a nervous ball of sheep, a tethered camel, and a furtive scurry of curious barn mice. Except for Joseph, there was no one to share Mary’s pain.  Or her joy.  Yes, there were angels announcing the Savior’s arrival-but only to a band of blue-collar shepherds.  And yes, a magnificent star shone in the sky to mark his birthplace-but only three foreigners bothered to look up and follow it. Thus, in the little town of Bethlehem…that one silent night…the royal birth of God’s Son tiptoed quietly by…as the world slept

Dear Gunnar, No you don’t have to like the hymns. And yes, you do need to sing them—hopefully in approximate tune and rhythm with the rest. It’s an excellent exercise in humility. The peace of the Lord, Eugene Dear Gunnar, So your friends are trying to turn you into a religious consumer, are they, inviting you to their wonderful churches where so much exciting stuff is going on? I would resist it. You’re better off sticking with what you started out with at your Christian re-entry—the “smallest and nearest church.” It’s still my standard counsel in churchgoing. Of course, I’d admit exception, but not for the reasons your friends are setting out. Those several dozen phlegmatic Norwegians, dozing under the liturgical inexpertness of your young pastor, are as good company as any with whom to listen to God’s word and worship his holy name. Where did all this frenzy in “looking for good church" get started anyway? Certainly not from any passion for holy obedience among the “least of these my brethren.” This church-shopping mentality, where we expect to find a flavor to suit every taste, is spiritually destructive. I don’t see any good coming out of church worship that caters to our taste in worship. The peace of the Lord,

No one ever influenced Tolkien — you might as well try to influence a bandersnatch. We listened to his work, but could only affect it by encouragement. He has only two reactions to criticism; either he begins the whole work again from the beginning or else takes no notice at all.

We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.

Now what was the sort of "hole" man had got himself into? He had tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor ---- that is the only way out of a "hole." This process of surrender - this movement full speed astern ---- is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death... Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It cannot happen. Very well, then, we must go through with it. But the same badness which makes us need it, makes us unable to do it. Can we do it if God helps us? Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us? We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak. He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.1 C.S.

Set your house in perfect order before criticizing the world.

The ability to yield, to bend, to give way, to accommodate, he said, was sometimes a source of strength in men as well as in wood, so long as it was helmed by inner resolve and by principle.

Standing there, watching them, it occurred to me that when Hitler watched Joe and the boys fight their way back from the rear of the field to sweep ahead of Italy and Germany seventy-five years ago, he saw, but did not recognize, heralds of his doom. He could not have known that one day hundreds of thousands of boys just like them, boys who shared their essential natures—decent and unassuming, not privileged or favored by anything in particular, just loyal, committed, and perseverant—would return to Germany dressed in olive drab, hunting him down.

They were now representatives of something much larger than themselves - a way of life, a shared set of values. Liberty was perhaps the most fundamental of those values. But the things that held them together - trust in each other, mutual respsect, humility, fair play, watching out for one another - those were also part of what America meant to all of them.

“Sure, I can make a boat,” he said, and then added, quoting the poet Joyce Kilmer, “‘But only God can make a tree.”

The challenges they had faced together had taught them humility—the need to subsume their individual egos for the sake of the boat as a whole—and humility was the common gateway through which they were able now to come together and begin to do what they had not been able to do before. •

There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for all the sins of men. For indeed it is so, my friend, and the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all. Whereas by shifting your own laziness and powerlessness onto others, you will end by sharing in Satan's pride and murmuring against God.

The stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.

We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.

Written by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s -- Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

When I was finally dismissed, one of the assistant coaches came over to reassure me. “Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn’t he?” he said. I could barely muster a “yeah”.

That lesson stuck with me my whole life. When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better. Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind.

When they went home that night, he put his arm around Ove’s shoulders and said: “Ove, only a swine thinks size and strength are the same thing. Remember that.” And Ove never forgot it.

Many years later it occurred to Sonja to ask him about all that. When Ove at last told her, she shook her head both long and hard. “So while I was sleeping you sneaked out and helped people in need . . . and mended their fences? People can say whatever they like about you, Ove. But you’re the strangest superhero I ever heard about.” Chapter 23. A Man Who Was Ove and a Bus That Never Got There

Sonja used to say that Ove had only admitted he was wrong on one occasion in all the years they had been married, and that was in the early 1980s after he’d agreed with her about something that later turned out to be incorrect. Ove himself maintained that this was a lie, a damned lie. By definition he had only admitted that she was wrong, not that he was.

And the world being after all full of strange creatures beyond count, these little people seemed of very little importance. But in the days of Bilbo, and of Frodo his heir, they suddenly became, by no wish of their own, both important and renowned, and troubled the counsels of the Wise and the Great.

‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

Why was I chosen?’ ‘Such questions cannot be answered,’ said Gandalf. ‘You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.’

‘My dear Frodo!’ exclaimed Gandalf. ‘Hobbits really are amazing creatures, as I have said before. You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you at a pinch.

‘Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

Frodo. ‘Yes, I, Gandalf the Grey,’ said the wizard solemnly. ‘There are many powers in the world, for good or for evil. Some are greater than I am. Against some I have not yet been measured. But my time is coming.

He thinks less than he talks, and slower; yet he can see through a brick wall in time (as they say in Bree).

Sam had begged to be allowed to wait on his master, but had been told that for this time he was a guest of honour.

Wise. For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so. I fear to take the Ring to hide it. I will not take the Ring to wield it.’

Those who made them did not desire strength or domination or hoarded wealth, but understanding, making, and healing, to preserve all things unstained.

‘The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.’ ‘Very well, very well, Master Elrond!’

Boromir looked in surprise at Bilbo, but the laughter died on his lips when he saw that all the others regarded the old hobbit with grave respect. Only Glóin smiled, but his smile came from old memories.

But you know well enough now that starting is too great a claim for any, and that only a small part is played in great deeds by any hero.

This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?

‘Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,’ said Gimli. ‘Maybe,’ said Elrond, ‘but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.’

‘Very good,’ said Haldir at last. ‘We will do this, though it is against our liking.

I will not give you counsel, saying do this, or do that. For not in doing or contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; but only in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be. But this I will say to you: your Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while all the Company is true.’

‘But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.’

‘But when the great fall, the less must lead.

‘No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying.’ He laughed, but the sound now seemed warm and kindly as a gleam of sunshine.

He rose and looked long at Gandalf. The others gazed at them in silence as they stood there facing one another. The grey figure of the Man, Aragorn son of Arathorn, was tall, and stern as stone, his hand upon the hilt of his sword; he looked as if some king out of the mists of the sea had stepped upon the shores of lesser men. Before him stooped the old figure, white, shining now as if with some light kindled within, bent, laden with years, but holding a power beyond the strength of kings.

Gandalf laughed long and merrily. ‘The trees?’ he said. ‘Nay, I see the wood as plainly as do you. But that is no deed of mine. It is a thing beyond the counsel of the wise. Better than my design, and better even than my hope the event has proved.’ ‘Then if not yours, whose is the wizardry?’ said Théoden. ‘Not Saruman’s, that is plain. Is there some mightier sage, of whom we have yet to learn?’ ‘It is not wizardry, but a power far older,’ said Gandalf: ‘a power that walked the earth, ere elf sang or hammer rang.

‘Treebeard was very thoughtful after Gandalf had gone. He had evidently learnt a lot in a short time and was digesting it. He looked at us and said: “Hm, well, I find you are not such hasty folk as I thought. You said much less than you might, and no more than you should. Hm, this is a bundle of news and no mistake! Well, now Treebeard must get busy again.”

Will you not come down? Isengard has proved less strong than your hope and fancy made it. So may other things in which you still have trust.

A fool, but an honest fool, you remain, Peregrin Took. Wiser ones might have done worse in such a pass.

‘There is one who may claim it by right. For this assuredly is the palantír of Orthanc from the treasury of Elendil, set here by the Kings of Gondor. Now my hour draws near. I will take it.’ Gandalf looked at Aragorn, and then, to the surprise of the others, he lifted the covered Stone, and bowed as he presented it. ‘Receive it, lord!’ he said: ‘in earnest of other things that shall be given back. But if I may counsel you in the use of your own, do not use it –yet! Be wary!’

Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves.

It had always been a notion of his that the kindness of dear Mr. Frodo was of such a high degree that it must imply a fair measure of blindness.

Gollum in his own way, and with much more excuse as his acquaintance was much briefer, may have made a similar mistake, confusing kindness and blindness.

But nay: the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. Yet there was naught in this to praise. I had no lure or desire to do other than I have done.’

‘A little people, but of great worth are the Shire-folk,’ said Halbarad. ‘Little do they know of our long labour for the safekeeping of their borders, and yet I grudge it not.’

My lord does not issue any command to you, he begs you only to remember old friendship and oaths long spoken, and for your own good to do all that you may.

You are wise, maybe, Mithrandir, yet with all your subtleties you have not all wisdom.

They are small, but they are valiant. Why, cousin, one of them went with only his esquire into the Black Country and fought with the Dark Lord all by himself, and set fire to his Tower, if you can believe it.

Our core problem, says St. Augustine, is that the human heart, ignoring God, turns in on itself, tries to lift itself, wants to please itself, and ends up debasing itself. The person who reaches toward God and wants to please God gets, so to speak, stretched by this move, and ennobled by the transcendence of its object. But the person who curves in on himself, who wants God’s gifts without God, who wants to satisfy the desires of a divided heart, ends up sagging and contracting into a little wad. His desires are provincial. “There is something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it.”

The person who reaches toward God and wants to please God gets, so to speak, stretched by this move, and ennobled by the transcendence of its object. But the person who curves in on himself, who wants God’s gifts without God, who wants to satisfy the desires of a divided heart, ends up sagging and contracting into a little wad. His desires are provincial. “There is something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it.” 91

But in the meantime, and in general, we ought to pay evildoers, including ourselves, the “intolerable compliment” of taking them seriously as moral agents, of holding them accountable for their wrongdoing. This is a mark of our respect for their dignity and weight as human beings. After all, what could be more arrogant than treating other persons as if they were no more responsible than tiny children or the mentally maimed?

The sobering fact is that reforms need constant reforming. Rescuers need rescue. 114 Amendments need amendment. Repentant sinners need to repent even of some dimensions of their repentance, such as their pride in the humility that has driven them to their knees. 115 Evil contaminates every scalpel designed to remove it. Even the Montgomery bus boycott —as just a cause as any —had to fight corruption within as well as without.

There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men, and the solution is a technique.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have come to our real journey.

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.

I have been writing hitherto on the assumption that the people in the next pew afford no rational ground for disappointment. Of course if they do—if the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridge-player or the man with squeaky boots a miser and an extortioner—then your task is so much the easier. All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question 'If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?' You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is, Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simply won't come into his head. He has not been anything like long enough with the Enemy to have any real humility yet. What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favourable credit-balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these 'smug', commonplace neighbours at all. Keep him in that state of mind as long as you can.

We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.

I do not know everything; still many things I understand.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

When you focus on what is taken (dust), what is the human being? When you understand the One doing the molding, the human is great; indeed he is nothing because of the material and great through the honor.

But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory…

In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.

Apart from me you can do nothing.

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.

Let not the wise boast of their wisdom, or the strong boast of their strength, or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me…

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself… It is the Lord who judges me.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. Love never fails.

Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.