Thomas Merton aptly noted, “It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not.” 1 To embrace an idea of oneself, without being grounded in God’s reality is to take on the identity of an imposter. It is difficult to recognize our imaginative imposter, for the characteristics contrived that make up his or her person are ultimately admirable to us, and we believe, to others as well. Merton goes on to remind us that these projected selves, these egos, are nothing more than “a defense for the false personality that is the creature of our own appetite for esteem.” If we are living into our own ideas of who we want, or think we should be, it feels right, even admirable.
This is not humility, however. This is at best pride, and at worst, a false humility. To understand the nature of humility, we can look at its metaphoric, etymological roots. We get our English word from the Latin word for soil (humus). “Humility is the quality of being solidly grounded, profoundly earthed.” 2
In other words, turning back to Merton, “humility consists in being precisely the person you actually are before God.” By appealing to our Divine Maker, we ground our identity in the One that knows us properly. This, according to Merton, takes “heroic humility” to be the person we were made to be, bringing our true selves to the world.
I’ve used title beauty in the title of this post, because I can think of no other adjective that best describes the emancipated self, freely flourishing, liberated from social tyranny and religious trappings that work to suffocate the authentic image of God within us. In a broken, often hostile world, a humble self is a grounded, rooted, and profoundly beautiful demonstration of exactly why Jesus came and what God’s love intends to accomplish. A humble, authentically true person is a prophetic message of hope that can’t be rationalized away. A person grounded in the soil of reality as God sees it, cuts through the fluffy shadows of our world’s faux relatedness and engages in something genuinely divine.
A humble person embraces the challenge to remain vulnerable, despite the false selves of others and the temptation to be swept away into the current of conformity. A humble person, in the pattern of Christ Himself, knows only the identity that has been given to them by the Creator. A humble person refuses to live into the experience of another, no matter how admirable the other person might seem to be. “How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man’s city?”
I don’t consider myself to have yet fully lived into the person God has made me to be. This feels like a life-long journey. I have, however, become aware of the many ways I have lived into the shadow of others, blending in, and identifying with a conceptual self of my own imagination. As this shadow self fades, and the emerging contours of my unique God-given identity present themselves, the Spirit is inviting me to surrender to God’s reality, how God’s sees me, in God’s love. This surrender is a grounding experience, not a striving one. Instead of reach up and out towards some affirming reality that never materializes, I’m reaching down and in, embracing something much more promising, and rewarding.
To be loved, accepted, and affirmed by my Creator God; this is what my seeking self longs for. What about you? Are you recognizing the journey toward self-discovery? Do hear the invitation to be you? This is what Merton calls heroic humility, abandoning comfortable known falsitity, and embracing the grounded and beautiful humility of embracing the person God loves, and desires to know.