Humility, the art of being humble. Sounds simple enough but what does it really mean?
Good old Ben Franklin had his ideas. He once wrote about how he decided he needed to work to overcome the Seven Deadly Sins, number one of which is Pride. After conquering six of the seven, only pride remained, the worst of all deadly sins. So, he focused on his humility, and in time realized it was hopeless, he could never conquer pride. Because when he did conquer pride with his humility, he had to be proud of his humility.
Well Ben is not the only one to be frustrated with the pursuit of happiness and overcoming of sins. But first, what is the basis of the Seven Deadly Sins and Cardinal Virtues? Contrary to popular opinion, there is no Biblical basis for either list. Nowhere in the Bible or Teaching of Jesus does scripture say here are the lists.
Of course, there is encouragement to master them but not in the form of a list, just in references to individual sins and virtues throughout the Old and New Testament. So, they were made up along the way in order to encourage people to focus on sins.
History of Seven Deadly Sins
The seven deadly sins were first compiled by Pope Gregory I around the year 600. They are pride, greed, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy, and sloth. Gregory also compiled a list of the seven virtues: faith, hope, charity, justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude. The Bible would validate all of these concepts, but nowhere are they recorded in a list like this and nowhere in the Bible are they specifically referred to as the seven deadly sins or seven virtues.
They do not predate the Ten Commandments which were given at Mt. Sinai around 1450 B.C. It is probably true that they were used extensively to teach principles from God's Word, particularly in the centuries before the invention of the printing press when the Bible was not available for the common man to read and study.
History of the Seven Cardinal Virtues
In the book, “The Seven Cardinal Virtues” Stalker traces the origins of the seven virtues to ancient Greece, written by Aristotle and Plato. In fact, the Greek philosophers identified the four virtues of wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage as crucial for a person to imbibe. Later when the New Testament was studied more intently three more virtues were added, charity, hope and faith. Hence it is common to refer to the initial four virtues as the Cardinal virtues while the later three are termed the Theological virtues.
The origin of the seven heavenly virtues can be traced to the Epic Poem, Psychopathic, containing the battle of the virtues and vices, written in AD 410 by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius. This popular work of the Middle Ages helped in propagating the concept of good virtues against the evil vices across Europe. One could be untouched by the seven deadly sins by inculcating the seven heavenly virtues.
Contribution of the Great Philosophers to the lists
Since they were first presented around the year 600 and 410, and the sins were based on earlier teaching of Aristotle and Plato. How interesting that two of the most famous philosophers in history laid the foundation for the Christian sins and virtues and they lived between 300 and 470 years before Jesus. I consider Socrates the third of the most influential philosophers in history and it does not hurt to look at the relationship between the three since their careers overlapped.
- Socrates is mostly known through the accounts of classical Greek writers, but Plato describes him as his teacher.
- Plato’s Academy (AKA the Academy) was founded by Plato in circa 387 BC in Athens.
- At seventeen or eighteen years of age, Aristotle joined Plato’s Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven (c. 347 BC).
- Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip of Macedon, tutored Alexander the Great beginning in c. 343 BC.
Socrates, born in Athens in 470 BC, is often credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. The cloud of mystery surrounding his life and philosophical viewpoints propose a problem; a problem so large that it’s given a name itself: The Socratic Problem. Since he did not write philosophical texts, all knowledge related to him is entirely dependent on the writings of other people of the time period.
Plato, student of Socrates, also has mystery surrounding him. His birth day is estimated to fall between 428 BC and 423 BC. He’s known for being the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.
Aristotle, student of Plato, lived from 384 BC-322 BC. At eighteen, he joined Plato’s Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. There, he honed his talents of understanding the world.
These three laid the foundations of many of the beliefs of the rest of the Western world. Philosophers such as John Locker and Descartes use the theories these brilliant minds brought forth in their own works. What a remarkable century when all three walked the earth.
So back to my mission, humility, I have now destroyed any Biblical origin for the list of sins and virtues and traced their origins to three centuries before Jesus amidst a group of pagan scholars who explained about everything in the world.
All my life I have been fascinated at how three such brilliant and productive people could have been on Earth during the same period and had such a lasting impact on everything we do today, nearly 2,500 years later. It was almost as if God sent these “adepts” to change the world and get it back on track. Not unlike the chaos of today.
Back to the Lists of Today
Regardless of the source, we have these lists because the Church liked the idea of such things, it was a new way to generate money for the Church through the sale of indulgences, and it was only appropriate to tie these famous heathen scholars to the Church for credibility.
Pride is the deadliest of the deadly sins, and pride can only be counteracted with humility. Certainly, humility is the polar opposite of pride, thus satisfying the need for polarization in Creation while attacking the number one deadly sin.
However, it leaves me a bit perplexed because there are some pretty extreme acts of pride that can be committed, so are there parallel extreme acts of humility needed to offset the extreme acts of pride? If so, does that mean humility can be deployed as a means of targeting and defeating pride, adjusting to whatever extremes pride throws its way?
I tend to view humility in a more passive way that is not interest in beating down and punishing the opposition, whether it be pride in the form of conceit, self-confidence, self-importance, arrogance, or stupidity. To me pride agitates, humility calms, it works to bring things back in balance.
Somehow it instinctively seeks out and finds the middle ground, the compromise, and quickly shepherds the far more aggressive and obvious aspects of pride to that point. Humility can be a very deceptive and decisive tool in your weaponry. Often underestimated, always overlooked, it prefers to operate in silence, invisibly avoiding attention.
While humility seems to be desperately needed because of the vast legions of cocky, chest-thumping, righteous, self-centered, conceited know-it-alls inhabiting our world, it might be better used and more successful at helping those who are good but need some guidance.
Why do I say that, because there is an aspect of humility that can be counter-productive to the teachings of Jesus, and can be a tool of the Dark Side to disrupt the path of the righteous when seeking Our Father?
Often the greatest progress on the Road to Kingdom Come can result from removing obstacles to your path rather than learning new things. Since the entire spectrum of sin deals with a reality or dimension beyond our everyday physical life on Earth, it plays out more as metaphysical warfare in the ethers of space.
Most sins are an emotional rejection of truth that then are manifested in your physical reality. The emotional rejection of right is played out in the mind of the sinner where free will makes a choice counter to the teachings of Jesus.
Stop for a minute and ask yourself, what in the world does humble little me have that would be of interest to Satan and the Dark Side. Well humble little you just refused in that assessment to recognize your power, your strength, and your road to salvation.
What you have, what you have forgotten, and what you must find and remember, is the perfect love of Our Father, the Creator. That astonishing miracle comes to you in the form of your Creation, duh!!!, in the gifts Father Creator has embedded in you, in the Father’s desire to see you use those gifts to help others find the way back to the garden, and in receiving (but not yet acknowledging) the Perfect love of the Father for all of Creation.
So, what is an obstacle to your purpose and mission in life? It would be so easy for anyone associated with the Dark Side to use humility as a ploy to convince you that it would be egotistical or conceited to think you could excel above all others in anything in your life. Or to say you cannot fulfill the Father’s desires for you to use those gifts, because you might give people the impression you know what is best for people.
Jesus never needed pages and pages of laws, rules, orders, definitions, and court rulings to determine what is right and wrong. Why do we need such things? People who preach conformity, preach normality, preach continuity, have forgotten Our Father is perfection and there is no reason his creations cannot represent perfection. In fact, his desire is for you to achieve perfection in the gifts he gave you.
People who press the issue of humility on you are trying to prohibit you from achieving the recognition from the Creator for your actions. If it is not intentional, then they have been duped by the Dark Side to take such a stand. They work to suppress your efforts to use the gifts of the Creator by excelling in the gifts he gave you.
Humility should be a source of inspiration and nourishment for the soul. It cannot be a source of limitation, of being an obstacle between you and Our Father’s desires for you. Humility means you acknowledge the love and gifts of the Creator and excel in your use of them to help, or inspire others. That is your expression of thanks, that is what the Creator wants to see.
Enlightened people and those on the road to enlightenment desire to seek out the truth, and desire to please Jesus and the Father very much. When they are successful they seem to infect people all around them with the love and grace of the Father they have received and the compassion, empathy, and spiritual growth they have attained from the teaching of Jesus.
Suzanne singing Pie Jesu
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Suzanne singing Pie Jesu
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Just the mere act of turning down the volume and moderating the blood pressure in these good souls touches the people around them, radiating calmness, warm thoughts, joy, happiness, satisfaction, and respect for others. That pleases Jesus.
People pleasing the Father and Jesus do not have to be poor, do not have to dress in rags, do not have to suffer from hunger, drug addiction, sexual abuse or anything else, in short, they do not have to be the epitome of humility forsaking all that makes them special so as not to disrupt or disturb those who are not special.
Give me a break.
Jesus was the model for humility, yet he changed water into wine, healed the sick, drove out demons, and even raised the dead. As if that was not a sufficient example of the good in exceptionalism, he then was crucified, died, raised himself from the dead (with a little help from the Creator), then sailed off into the sky to Heaven with Moses and Elijah on either side while promising to return one day.
He taught there was nothing he did we could not do, if we just have faith. We are all the children and Creation of Father Creator.
Seriously, we can do anything you can do?
My soul, my spirit, my heart all long to be just like Jesus, but my mind says don’t be a fool, you are not flying anywhere on your own. I have work to do.
Fortunately, I also have a hyperactive imagination that kicks in just when my mind most needs it, when it thinks it knows everything, has all the answers, or starts to view things from a superior perspective. The only thing that being wealthy, sophisticated, or intellectual has to do with it is to make it harder to be humble.
Sometimes being humble is going as far as you can on three flat tires. It is running out of gas going down the mountain rather than up the mountain. Good things come to those who are humble up to a point, the point being when humility becomes that obstacle to your achieving perfection. The point when it stands in the way of your full use of the gifts the Creator gave you. The point where the Father’s desires for your success and perfection are derailed by an overzealous humility.
You must not use humility as an excuse to not seek perfection in the eyes of God and Jesus, for perfection in the perfect love of Father Creator is what the Father desires. Nor should you use it as an excuse to mask your fear of failure, of disappointment, rejection, or just plain dumb things you may be inclined to do in the course of life.
Humility can be mastered without sacrificing the expectation, desires, and love of the Father. There is nothing wrong with being right, nothing weak about being strong, nothing bad about being good.
Do I ignore the effort I put into being good at what I do? Do I reject as excessive the knowledge I learn about something in order to excel? Do I discount the lessons I learned, both good and bad, from my experiences? Do I, in the interest of being humble, let other people take credit for what I create?
Suzanne singing St.Theresa's Prayer
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Suzanne singing St.Theresa's Prayer
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If I did it might be the “humble” way to approach life in order to master humility, but does it please the Father, who is perfection? That don’t seem right to me, the title of a song I wrote.
It sits on a shelf with a few hundred other songs I wrote, victims of my humble view of myself as a prolific writer, poet, or composer. That seems like an extreme use of humility, to deny myself the opportunity to share a part of my heart and soul with you through music.
I’m counting on getting over that notion before Judgement Day.
Yet another problem with humility I see is it puts a great big bullseye on your back for those of the Dark Side to find you, because they live to disrupt the salvation of all souls, especially yours, and block any actions pleasing to God.
That sucks too.
In the end we have to strike a balance in our lives. We honor the Father by using the gifts he gave us to the best of our ability. We please Our Father by doing whatever we do in a humble way. We succeed in our mission when miracles do happen.
Kind of a sharp contrast or dilemma, excel or not, succeed or not, be who we think we are or we think we are meant to be.
In closing, let me share an experience that demonstrates what I mean. Once I met a young woman who was the pinnacle of perfection, as I know it. She lived in a state of Grace. Somehow, her transfiguration was achieved early in life or she was born with it.
She loved and served Jesus, talked to him every day, and did nothing without asking his permission first. Suzanne was the epitome of humility, safely secure within a state of Grace, and she was happy, fearless, and lived for the moment. At the same time she radiated that golden glow of Father Creator to a degree that she was virtually invisible to most around her.
I spent many hours talking to her, knowing that her time with me would be short as so many people needed her message of inspiration, hope and joy. Always she had a soft smile for everyone and never pushed an agenda of what they needed to be saved. Her dress was humble and understated her beauty and remarkable faith in Jesus.
Shortly before she left to continue her journey, she said she played the harp and loved to sing to the Lord and Jesus. As she prepared to drive away, she gave me a CD and said I might enjoy it.
It was her, playing beautiful music on her harp, singing angelic songs and praising Jesus and the Lord. There was accompaniment from some nuns and minimal music so as not to interfere with the message. The recording was clearly done in a magnificent Cathedral.
The sound was the most soothing, beautiful, well produced album I ever heard. Mind you I had a lot of involvement in Christian and Gospel music working in the industry in Nashville and doing sessions in some exceptional studios. A nationwide radio show I created featured and introduced many Christian artists to the world.
Suzanne singing How Great Thou Art
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Suzanne singing How Great Thou Art
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The album Suzanne gave me was at the top of the charts from my perspective, a magical voice with perfect pitch, and a production second to none. I listened to the CD after she left. Then I looked at the disc. She titled the album “My Soul Magnifies the Lord,” half the songs were called “Quiet Meditations” and half were called “Sacred Hymns.” It was a masterpiece, and her name was nowhere to be found on the CD or cover.
A year later she wrote and told me she wanted to share her gifts, but not attention for performing them as it might distract from the message in the music. No greater proper and perfect demonstration of humility could be found, and all it took was an angel to show me the way.
In summary, if humility was the answer it would be a Cardinal Virtue, but it did not make the cut. However, there is a time and place for it as long as you do not let it stop you from seeking perfection in the gifts you received from the Creator, from trying to live up to the Creator’s desires for you, and from finding joy and happiness in our world.
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