Self-centeredness has always been in vogue

Pride is a difficult subject these days. So much is said about the importance of a good self-concept, and justifiable pride and the worthiness of pride in accomplishment. We say we’re proud of our Catholic faith, proud of our families, proud of our new car - not that all these things are equal, but we’re proud of them nevertheless. And rightly so.

Where, then, do we draw the line and cross into the Great Defect so ably exposited in the Story of the Fall? The sin in Eden, we know, was not so much disobedience as pride: man and woman thinking they could be equal with God.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t go around thinking I can be equal with God. I rather doubt, though, that that puts me in the clear with respect to pride. No, it seems to me that pride is not cut and dried, but insidious.

It seems to me that the very nature of pride would disable our ability to recognize it in ourselves. That is, if I’m swelled with pride, oozing with it – the worse the case I’ve got the less willing I am to acknowledge that I am indeed puffed up. How then to break the cycle of spiraling big-shotitis, sacrosanctity, gooey self-satisfaction and holy-and-worthy-of-praise-am-I?

Pride is no more noticeable than it is in someone else. I can spot pride coming up the road. I’ve noticed, however, that when my sensory-receptors become especially keen, I have to run and look in the mirror, there to see his excellency himself sitting in the judgment seat. In short, I’ve learned that one clue to recognizing this beast in myself is the recognition of it in others.

Once recognized, the pill is bitter. Seeing those pompous, egomaniacal, sick-with-self qualities in others, I become forced to admit that I myself must be schooled in these attributes, nay steeped in understanding.

Oh, society will come to my rescue with balms and ointments aplenty. I can round up confederates quickly - quickly stir the gossip mill against my boasting, pride-bloated target. It’s easy to find support to boo the overbearing fop, the woozy drunkard at the trough of self.

Being proud is chic. It’s in. Self-centeredness always has been in vogue, but it has taken on a certain religiosity. It’s true that God didn’t make any junk; but He also didn’t make any other gods. Recognition of self-worth can easily become the Cult of the Self. We may be worth it, but we also may be full of it. The Gospel message is still he who would gain his life must lose it; it’s still the last shall come first; it’s still never act out of rivalry or conceit; rather, let all parties think humbly of others as superior to themselves; it’s still looking to other’s interests rather than to our own.

It’s particularly difficult for me to think as superior to myself of someone who already thinks he’s superior to myself. I’d just as soon assign the jack-a-napes to you know where. I know I’m in a dead run ahead of him, though, if I do. It doesn’t seem right, but I guess it is.

The bottom line again, ever and always is prayer. I can’t get into the right understanding of who I am in relationship with God and my neighbor if I distance myself from the question. Once more, pride breeds a barrier to seeing its ugly face, so plain in others, but so hidden in the mirror. Praising God reminds me of Who indeed is worthy to be praised.

Pride comes in many forms inside this aging clay of mine: vanity (if you can believe that), an air of superiority, thinking little of others, smugness, being a gossip. It’s most insidious when it creeps into my self-confidence, my accomplishments, in the exercise of the gifts God has given me.

I know that there are those who need ego-reinforcement as therapy for crushing and painful circumstances. I know also that it can go too far, that it’s not a cure-all, cure-everything. Somehow in all the blessings afforded by counseling and the other helps we know in our world, a person’s relationship with God has to enter into the picture. Pleasing ourselves, feeling good about ourselves, satisfying ourselves is not a blessed objective without a deep understanding that we are who we are only because God made us that way. In and of ourselves, we are nothing. We gain our worth and dignity only in relationship – to God and to others.

God commanded us to love our neighbor in the same way as we love ourselves. I take that as a command to love ourselves, too. But love is patient, love is kind, is not puffed up, forgives all things and bears all things. To love means to die to self, and that brings the fullness of life.

My biggest hang-up with pride is recognition of good things I have done, thinking how I’ve helped and served and suffered long and patiently. There, too, Jesus taught me: “Why do you call me good?” Jesus said, “Only the Father in heaven is good.” That’s something for us moderns to ponder. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on February 8th, 1987

Humility

Humility: The word is almost anathema anymore.

Bring up humility in your next polite conversation and see what reaction you get.

It’s amusing to reflect on the irony of the reaction one might get from writing a column about humility. “Who do you think you are, Bud: The world’s most humble person?”

There’s no way to defend my capacity to discuss humility. I don’t mind putting my cards on the table. I acknowledge that I’m selfish, overindulgent, lazy; and I’m not particularly fond of having people notice these things about me.

I have a difficult time speaking my convictions in public. Rather, I prefer saying what I think you might like to hear. Better you agree with my half-baked platitudes, than have you mad at me because my deeply-felt, but unlived, ideals make you uncomfortable.

But saying these things doesn’t make me humble. A person might indeed be proud of his character defects.

Can we talk about it?

It seems to me that our society is wallowing in humanistic absolution. The “Yeah, but” syndrome has taken over.

Some examples:

“You’re not spending much time with your family, are you Charlie?” “ Yeah, but a man’s gotta make a buck.”

“You’re not spending any time at all in prayer, are you Charlie?” “Yeah, but nobody’s perfect.”

“What was that you put in the collection basket, Charlie, a nickel or a bottle cap?” “Yeah, I put a nickel in, but I couldn’t pay my bills if I put it all in the collection.”

You get my drift. It’s easy to find agreement for our short-comings and in it absolve ourselves and get lost in the great complexus of the human condition.

What is humility? There’s probably a classic definition out there somewhere that would give us erudite insights. But humility is nothing if it’s not real to us. It is perhaps best defined as lived in the life of someone we know.

If we have been privileged to know one or two humble people in our lives, surely we have been favored with a special grace from God. Then we have been favored not only with knowing about humility, but of coming somehow closer to understanding.

Bishop Fulton Sheen was wont to distribute crosses in his travels for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. It was one day in Africa that he presented a cross to the outstretched hand of a leper.

He tells the story in Treasure in Clay, his autobiography, that the hand “was the most foul, noisome mass of corruption I ever saw.” He held the cross over the man’s hand and dropped it.

“I had taken that symbol of God’s identification with man and refused to identify myself with someone who was a thousand times better on the inside than I,” he said. “Then it came over me the awful thing I had done. I dug my fingers into his leprosy, took out the crucifix and pressed it into his hand.”

Yes, we have value before God. Yes, we are special. Yes, God loves us beyond all understanding. Yes, we are all imperfect.

Humility is not groveling, or false self-derision or even a poor self-concept. But it is the awareness of the truth of ourselves. It is the willingness to acknowledge and honor the worth of another, without reference to self.

Humility is a most valuable, nay precious, virtue; and I vote for its resurrection in our society. It can exert such power over so much of our behavior. Humility awakens the awareness of truth. The awareness of truth brings us into the presence of God.

What flareup of anger could not be soothed with humility?

What arrogant, intellectual confrontation could not be assuaged with humility?

What strides could be made toward Christian unity with humility?

What sickness of headlong greed could not be healed with humility?

We just can’t seem to do it. We know about humility. We even understand it. We just can’t accept its challenge.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on April 20th, 1986