ON HUMILITY
Last Monday's walk in the 'desert' was short. A week without heating (replacing the gas boiler with a heat pump system) and the attendant cold, followed by presiding a liturgy of St Basil on Sunday and reading the entire canon carefully in French so that everyone could follow, had left me limited energy.
As I walked, I mused on the way in which during Lent, preachers - especially Orthodox - bash on continuously about the need for humility. This is something which has always upset me. Maybe necessary in the early stages, but with serious risk of collateral damage: castrating people so that they fear to use their God-given talents and judgement, and/or creating dangerous dependencies on ‘spiritual fathers’ or other persons claiming spiritual authority. In short, failing to mature into Christian adults - sons and daughters at home in the Father’s house.
At some stage, therefore, I want to re-define humility more simply as that attitude one needs to maintain permanent contact with God. It’s a bit like on an old-fashioned radio, where you twiddled the knob to get the best possible reception: in the same way one quickly develops a sense for the attitude which keeps open a path to God and one which blocks it. Natural correct behaviour in the Father's house. Neither puffing oneself up nor demeaning oneself.
For me this is not particularly advanced spirituality: once one starts testing the border from praxis to theoria (in Orthodox terminology) or to the fourth mansion (Carmelite language one should be able to twiddle the knobs oneself.
And somethat that, once learned, on doesn't need to dwell on too much. Once someone can ride a bicycle or swim, you don't remind them every two weeks how to do so.