Hello and welcome to the Saturday before the third Sunday of Advent here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is December 11th.
Five years ago, I was invited to give a talk for the Advent Ladies' Tea at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Warroad. I love Advent. I think of Advent as the "Whoa, Nelly!" on the hustle and bustle before Christmas. Technically it's a time for preparing for Christ's birth. But what does that look like, and does it include shopping? What follows is the talk I gave and my attempt to answer this question. Please note this was originally intended for a Catholic audience, so make of it what you will. - Kim
Imagine you’re on a committee. The committee gets together and your job is to plan an event for the parish. You’re discussing ideas and someone’s jotting them down. Then this one person shouts, “I’ve got it!” and pitches an idea with a voice that’s louder than a megaphone. You swear you popped an eardrum and the way she jumped out of the chair to shout her idea practically put the lady next to you into cardiac arrest.
Your committee decides what they’re going to do and you start planning for it. The lady with the big idea tries to help with the details, but she is hopeless. She keeps talking about themes and how great this is going to be when you’d rather be discussing themed napkins and table decorations and who’s going to buy what and how the work is going to get divvied up.
Finally it’s the day of the event. While you’re putting the finishing touches on the decorations you spent hours crafting, across the room you hear that big boisterous voice that has come to make you cringe. Normally you like this person, but geez – that laugh. Couldn’t she just chuckle like the rest of them? No. She has to guffaw, like whatever she just heard was the funniest thing ever. And she talks constantly. You always thought she was chatty, but man, she really does talk a lot. I mean – A LOT. Talk, talk, talk. Yak, yak, yak. You swear that if you could just put some tape over her mouth her hands would move twice as fast which you’d really appreciate right about now as you’re trying to mix the lemonade, set out the bars, and wipe off the counter.
During the event, you can’t help but to watch this person. You notice how she forgets to serve the pie because she’s talking to some lady. When she draws for the door prizes she doesn’t pay attention to the time and now the program will end five minutes late. When it’s time to clean up you get hopeful that she’s finally going to crack the whip so everyone can get out of here as soon as possible. But nope – she’s chatting with a lingering guest. Talking, not doing, you think, as you scrub dishes in the church kitchen. You hear the guest say, “Oh, you did such a wonderful job on this event. You’re so talented!” and the lady who you’ve vowed to never work on another committee with again says, “Oh, you are so welcome! I love doing this kind of thing!” You look over to your friend who’s drying the serving tray you just handed her. She looks over her shoulder and says, “Mm-hmm.”
The classic Martha and Mary situation.
I once heard a lady describe leadership as being about humility. When I asked her what she meant she said, “Putting others first. Lifting them up and not bragging about your own accomplishments. Staying behind the scenes and remaining anonymous in your service.”
I’ve often thought about her definition of leadership. I knew there was some wisdom in what she was saying. There’s even a name for it - Servant Leadership. I tried to embrace her definition, but the truth is, I didn’t like it. At all. To me, what she was describing wasn’t leadership, per se, but a leadership style. Of introverts.
Introverts are the quiet, modest, humble ones. Extroverts are the loud, talky, take-credit types. Introverts complain that extroverts are all talk and no walk. Introverts believe that they are the real doers - the bulldozers behind those yakky extroverts. The extroverts complain that the introverts are too quiet and too modest. Etroverts believe that their job is to be the cheerleaders for those working anonymously behind the scenes.
By now you can probably guess which group I identify with. I’m that person who can be loud and chatty and seems to be the last pair of hands on the cleaning up, not because I don’t want to help, but because I’ve been talking. I am Mary. (Of the Martha and Mary scenario – not Jesus’s mom.)
I was bothered by my friend’s definition of leadership because I felt it excluded me. It felt unfair that the introverts were the ones who got the halos and the extroverts were the ones who got the dirty looks. I wanted to be humble, too! How come my qualities weren’t synonymous with humility? Why couldn’t I be the humble one?
As an extrovert, I see nothing wrong with feeling comfortable talking in front of a group or being the spokesperson for a project when everyone else shies away from the microphone. In my mind, there’s nothing wrong with saying, “I’m good at that” or “I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.” When I take the time to chat with a guest, I’m letting that person know that what she is saying has value, that she is important. That’s got to count for something, right? Maybe I could just consider myself humble and that would be enough, even if those snooty introverts didn’t think so.
Then a few instances in my life showed me that when I was doing good deeds for others, I had a tendency to make it about me. Even though I considered myself a nice person, humility really did seem to be something I needed to work on. Maybe especially because I was an extrovert.
And apparently God agreed because as soon as I mentioned to a woman in our parish, “Hey, I realized I need to work on humility,” she immediately said, “Hey, I have something I think will help you.” A month later I received my first (gifted) issue of Magnificat.
If you’ve never read Magnificat, it’s not just a quick devotion - a single line of scripture and a short paragraph-long reflection like on my daily desk calendar. Magnificat has (long) prayers and songs and intercessions along with daily readings, a daily meditation and a daily biography of a saint. There’s morning prayer, mass, and evening prayers. It's work. But the lady from church - a woman who I really admire and respect - said this would help. I couldn’t just adopt humility and claim it. I had to understand what it was and how I could authentically get some of it. I had to try.
Humility Lesson #1: Do the work even if you don’t want to.
Then my mother sent me a calendar. The note said, “I turned to June and decided this calendar is for you. It’s a GOD thing!” (The all caps in God my mother's emphasis, not mine.) Guess what June's theme was? Humility. The verse on the calendar read, “He leads the humble in doing right; teaching them his way.”
Once I committed to the intention to be more humble, the messages filled my spiritual inbox as fast as Christmas cards filled our green, metal mailbox.
Humility means keeping Christ at your center.
Christ is humility and Christ is our core. What is more humbling (or loving) than offering your only son to a world that probably doesn’t deserve him? Or to be that son who ultimately dies on the cross for our salvation? December’s theme of my mom’s calendar was Love. The verse read, “God’s love was revealed among us in this way; God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” – 1 John 4:9. God is at the very center of the concentric circles of my life. Everything begins and flows out from this center.
Humility is leaning into God.
The Bible has verses all over the place reminding us over and over again to trust. Isaiah 26:1-6: "Trust in the Lord forever! For the Lord is an eternal Rock. He humbles those in high places, and the lofty city he brings down." Even a little cross decoration from the youth room reminds us, “In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.”
Humility is being present in the now.
And by doing so, experiencing the emotions of the present whatever they may be. Not tucking them away for a more appropriate time, but facing them in that moment. There’s a quote by Matthew Kelly that I read every day just before I write: "God and life are always to be found in the now. Live each now passionately with God."
Humility means patience.
The day before Thanksgiving, the Pope tweeted: "May the Holy Spirit help us to be patient when enduring, and to be humble and simple when advising." He reminds me to keep believing I have something to offer even if no one is praising me or my ideas seem different.
Humility means to keep showing up.
The Pope tweeted on Thanksgiving: "We have to break out of ourselves to encounter others. If we don’t, even we Christians can suffer from division." God calls us to step outside of ourselves, even when we don’t feel like it, to keep coming back to our community even when we feel like staying in our cave and holing up.
Humility means using the talents we’ve been given.
There’s a page in Magnifact I ripped out that reads:
“A talent is a gift and a particular raw material, and at the same time an opportunity. Christ, in giving you a talent, trusts you and waits for you to take proper advantage of it. If he has given you certain abilities, he is not indifferent about what you do with them. However, if you have not received these abilities, this is also a talent. A talent is not only receiving something, but it is also lacking something. / In the light of faith, the good health you have is a talent, but bad health is also a talent. In each case Jesus poses the questions, What are you doing with this talent? You can waste health and, even more so, a lack of health. Everything is a gift; a talent is a gift. God continuously bestows gifts on you.”
Humility is gratitude.
I want my wanting to be from a healthy place, a place of abundance – and this place is gratitude, to be thankful for all the blessings in my life.
If you think about it, Thanksgiving is the perfect gateway to Christmas. We’re reminded to give thanks, to be thankful, and to hold that space while we prepare our hearts for the ultimate gift – the birth of Christ. So, as we journey through Advent and prepare our hearts for Christmas, how can we move away from ego and focus more on Christ?
In the Czech Republic there are two Christmas traditions that we celebrate a little bit differently than in the U.S. that I believe shore up some sense of humility. First, we don’t hang our Christmas decorations or decorate our tree until Christmas Eve. I know, that sounds absolutely crazy. Most of you probably had your tree up the day after Thanksgiving. But you know what? Not having all the decorations up reminds me that we really are waiting; that we are preparing our hearts for the birth of Jesus. (And when Christmas comes, believe me, we are ready to party!) What is something you can postpone or put away until Christmas comes? Is it the star on the top of your tree? Is it part of your holiday baking? Or the Christmas music?
The second tradition is that ježÃÅ¡ek - Baby Jesus - not Santa Claus, is the one who brings all the presents for everyone instead of people gifting each other. I admit, this was a challenging shift, especially because I like the praise and recognition that comes with giving someone a good gift. But there really is something to be said for the magic and wonder when the children shout to the room, “Thank you, Jesus!”
I don’t think people are going to start adopting these traditions in Wannskaland anytime soon.
But how about we try forgiveness? Forgiveness is the ultimate in humility. To let go of hurts and grudges is to deny the ego its drug of choice: justification.
Or how about acceptance? Acceptance of other people for who they are, to resist the temptation to “steer and control” as my mother would say? Acceptance of yourself as God’s creation? Acceptance of God’s will and leaning in with all the faith you can muster? When I get hung up on the issue of acceptance, I try to remember that it’s not my job to judge. It’s my job to care, to be compassionate, to be Christ-like despite all my failings, faults, and shortcomings.
Go to church. Just showing up is a win. Trust that the message God intends for you will seep into your heart even if your mind isn’t cooperating and you’re actually thinking about if this is the Sunday the Knights of Columbus will be serving breakfast, or what kind of cookies you should bake this year, or what you should wear on Christmas and whether the kids need new outfits and if they do should they count as Christmas presents.
Take communion. Probably my favorite line of the entire Mass comes from the Eucharistic prayer: “Lord, I am not worthy that you shall enter under my roof; but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” That weekly reminder is like pushing the reset button.
Go to confession. Facing yourself and your own humanity is not only humbling, it’s like a massage for the soul. You might feel sore afterwards, but the release of all that tension, angst and general blah feeling makes it worth it.
And when in doubt – pray. There’s probably nothing more Christ-centered than prayer.
Begin again. Keep trying. Some days you’ll get it right, other days you won’t. But as Miss Stacey told Anne Shirly in my favorite book of all time: “Tomorrow starts fresh with no mistakes.”
Looking at humility through God’s teachings, we’re all called, whether we’re extroverts or introverts, to keep ego in check; to make it not about me or about you. Anything that pulls us away from our Christ-center is about ego – the self without God.
Humility is so much more than washing dishes – or not; visiting with the last guest at a party – or not; taking credit for your work – or not. It is about keeping Christ at your center, so that we may be as Christ-like as possible in how we show up and experience the world. I wish you a Christ-centered Advent and a very Merry (upcoming) Christmas.
On This Day
Historic Highlights (credits)
Happy Birthday to You!🎶
Remembering You
Kim
As a recovering introvert, I can report that introverts have no advantage on the path to humility.
ReplyDeleteGreat Message!