Fragments on Humility

Posted December 23rd, 2011 in Philip Belcher,spartanburg
2 Comments  -  Link to this post

Any of my family members will tell you that I have an abundance of reasons to be humble.  Beyond the personal jab they might intend by the comment, of course, they are absolutely correct.

I’ve thought some recently about humility, but it’s slippery.  Consider that it may disappear as soon as one acknowledges it.  We all know people who take enormous pride in their humility.  Sort of ruins the effect, doesn’t it?

My own definition of this particular virtue has to do with understanding how much we have to learn from others—from those who agree with us, from those who disagree, from those within our own traditions, and from those who hold world views that could not be farther from ours.  In this sense, humility might be considered the opposite of provincialism or parochialism.  Maybe its twin is respect.  Maybe its cousin is honesty.

A couple of years ago, the Foundation distributed its holiday greeting card electronically to our rather extensive mailing list.  The message was simple:  Happy Holidays.  The photograph showed the Foundation’s staff hanging from various handholds on the climbing wall at the Glendale Outdoor Leadership School.  Festive and cheerful.  Among the many return greetings was one email replying that the sender would have preferred the Foundation to have wished him a Merry Christmas.  I have thought about that ever since (not that I ever brood).  The implication of the email reply was that the Foundation was diluting the significance of the greeting by not using language that specified the offended citizen’s religious preference, that we were in some fashion attempting to be politically correct.  But I make a distinction between political correctness — using or avoiding language solely out of deference to another’s preferences (my definition) — and respecting other peoples’ traditions.  Surely there is nothing inherently wrong in caring how our words affect others or in asking what our Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist and other non-Christian neighbors might think of being greeted with a Christian salutation by a non-sectarian institution like the Mary Black Foundation?  The issue, however, is deeper than a concern for whether religious minorities in our community might take umbrage.  Respect is more than tolerance; it entails acknowledging our own ignorance, making public what is obvious: that we do not know everything, that our understanding does not encompass all wisdom and truth.  If we are willing, all of us can learn from those whose beliefs and traditions differ from ours.  To do otherwise is to wave the tattered banner of arrogance.

A more recent event also encouraged me to consider the great diversity of wisdom:  the death of Christopher Hitchens.  Hitchens, whose New York Times obituary provides a useful introduction to his work, was a writer, a literary and cultural critic, one of the nation’s leading public intellectuals, a curmudgeon, and an “anti-theist.”  His brilliance was undeniable, regardless of one’s opinion of his take on culture and politics.  Hitchens was particularly famous for his lucid and tightly-argued essays and for his prodigious appetites for literature and alcohol.  In one of his more controversial articles, he went after Mother Teresa and the Vatican’s effort to accelerate her beatification (Daily Beast, October 20, 2003).  So here are two public figures, Mother Teresa—founder of the Missionaries of Charity and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—and Christopher Hitchens.  And I find myself wanting to learn from each:  from one a marvelous clarity of thought and courage to write and say what one believes, from the other a boundless energy on behalf of the poor and oppressed.  One of them was an atheist, one a Catholic on her way to sainthood.  What’s wrong with learning from each?

As the Foundation continues its work to improve health and wellness in Spartanburg County in the New Year, we commit ourselves to listening to, and learning from, the diverse voices that comprise this community.  May their number grow.

Happy Holidays!

-Philip Belcher