Soul Mentoring by Robinson David;

Author:Robinson, David; [Robinson, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781498201162
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2015-08-20T07:00:00+00:00

167. Gregory, Pastoral Rule, 129.

168. 1 Corinthians 3:6–9.

169. Gregory, Pastoral Rule, 127.

170. James 1:19–21.

171. Gregory, Pastoral Rule, 130.

172. Ibid., 129.

Chapter 38

The Humble and the Arrogant

At six feet, four inches, I am considered by most people a tall man. I’ve often been asked to reach things on the top shelf or been employed as a human ladder by “height- disadvantaged” people. One of the hardest things for tall people, though, is to stoop down low to the ground.

These two movements of the body express similar movements of the soul: reaching high and stooping low. Both are part of what makes us unique among God’s creatures. Along with all other animals, we have a physical body with earthly appetites for food, sex, drink, and sleep. Yet we also have a soul, with lofty desires for faith, hope. and love. We have the capacity to stoop low to the earth and to soar high among the stars. This same capacity can lead us into ways of living which are harmful to ourselves and to others, or into ones which bring life and goodness to ourselves and others. These two paths are the way of the humble and the way of the arrogant.

The longest chapter in The Rule of St Benedict is the chapter on humility.173 In that chapter, Benedict describes humility as a ladder we set up in our lives, with twelve rungs or steps. Benedict writes, “If we want to reach the highest summit of humility, if we desire to attain speedily that exaltation in heaven to which we climb by the humility in this present life, then by our ascending actions we must set up that ladder.” 174 Benedict offers twelve steps or rungs on this ladder of humility. I’ve paraphrased them as follows:

1) Put God first.

2) Imitate Christ.

3) Submit to God.

4) Patiently endure.

5) Confess.

6) Learn contentment.

7) Stoop low.

8) Be accountable to others.

9) Learn to listen.

10) Laugh more.

11) Practice gentleness.

12) Live a life of humility.175

Benedict designed his twelve-step program for recovery from arrogance 1,500 years before Alcoholics Anonymous was created. As a monk, Gregory lived according to Benedict’s writing, including living according to Benedict’s twelve-step program of humility. Thus, it is not surprising that Gregory writes, “it should be said to the humble that whenever they lower themselves, they ascend to the likeness of God.”176 That is to say, we ascend by stooping. As Jesus declared, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”177

Just as the humble love to stoop low to help others, the arrogant love to climb high to help themselves. Oxford professor C. S. Lewis wrote the following about pride:

According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”178

One of the great dangers of pride or arrogance is that sometimes it will masquerade as false humility.

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