Humility and Western Culture

Most people know the Desert Fathers and Mothers are spiritual heroes of mine. Outside of the Bible, the collected sayings and stories are my sacred texts.

Central to their teaching was humility. It was the way to God and to service to those around us. Theirs was a sometimes harsh humility. Some of the sayings (not only on humility) need to be tempered with modern psychology and viewed with some slight understanding of the ancient world.

It is hard to practice humility in the modern world, particularly this western world of European descent. There is nothing humble about "exploring" and colonizing much of the world. We inherit this hubris in many forms.

And then try to practice humility while also answering a call to creative endeavors. It's all about self-promotion if you're to get noticed. I'd like to think the work would draw attention, but I've found that to be untrue or at least undependable.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to practice humility, I'm accused of low self-esteem. Sometimes I maybe believe it is low self-esteem. Other times, I'm so full of myself at any little accomplishment that I'm reminded how much I need to practice this virtue. The voices of the culture tell you to believe you're amazing and unconquerable. Humility says to count everyone as better than yourself, not out of self-hate but out of service.

Humility is hard.

Back in college I took an anthropology course in ethnographic film. I had no idea what I was signing up for but needed a class to fill out my schedule and as a theater major, I saw the word "film" in the title and thought it might have something to do with my other studies. I was wrong on that count but one thing has stuck with me all these years. That's a book called The Dobe !Kung by Richard B. Lee. The appendix, "Eating Christmas in the Kalahari," tells the story of the author's parting gift to the !Kung, a large bull to be slaughtered for Christmas feasting. They treat the gift with contempt and derision until the day of the slaughter. Then they all laughed at him and ate their fill. He was puzzled, expecting praise and thanks as he was. He came to find out they were practicing a sort of humility that they practiced among themselves. They taught this sort of nearly ritualized derision of accomplishments as a way to keep themselves from arrogance. The author realized his arrogance and wondered how he'd missed this aspect of their culture until they used it on him. One !Kung man told the anthropologist, "you never asked."

And I recall thinking at the time that it was a way to practice a sort of Christianity without Christianity. It struck me as a terribly moral way to live together, no one bragging on their own traits, no one putting up with bragging in another.

That they were African desert people from the southern part of the continent did not keep me from comparing their way to the African monks of the northern African desert.

And I'm left with these African teachers giving me a hard way to be in this western culture. And because it's hard and I'm often lazy and weak, I have not learned their lessons.

I think of Abba Macarius who encountered a demon in the desert. The demon said, "I can best you in everything you practice, Macarius, save for one thing and it gives me great torment." Macarius asked, "What is that?" The demon replied, "You fast--I don't eat at all. You keep vigil--I never sleep. But the thing I can not best you at is your humility. Because of it, I am not able to overpower you."

And so, I return to trying to understand and practice the simple word, humility. I have demons that overpower me.  If the western culture of my inheritance sees low self-esteem, these demons see the arrogance not two steps away. Expecting praise for a gift is just another kind of economic transaction and no longer a gift.