The Blessings of Meekness

   ***NOTE: I began writing this blog post exactly a year ago today as I took the train from Warsaw to Poznan. When I first began writing this post the concept, potential conclusion, and plan were completely different from what I ended up with. Over the year I came back to this post several times, each time adding something new but never taking anything away. Aside from small stylistic changes I have kept all of the beginning paragraphs and the title the same, resulting in a blog post that easily and obviously chronicles my shifts in thinking throughout the year. Although it is obvious that the conclusions I come to are not the ones I was working toward in the first few paragraphs, I think this clear delineation between sections of the blog post is part of its appeal, and its use a tool of learning. ***

   "We're going," I hear from behind me as I stand with the rest of the congregation, "are you coming?"
      I turn around only to see C, along with the rest of our group, packing her things. My eyes dart to the front of the chapel where the vicar, who had so kindly let us in to be part of the service, is looking in our direction, I look back to her.
      "Now!?," I hiss, giving a dirtier look than I mean to.
      "Yeah," she waves her hand as she follows the others out of the chapel, "come on."
      I look back toward the choir who are now singing from the book of Psalms. I hesitate. I know I shouldn't leave. I don't even want to leave. But I need still to speak with C before she leaves Oxford only a few hours from now. Reluctantly I grab my purse and follow them quickly and discreetly. I spend the next hour trying to keep a safe distance while my new-found group of drunken friends explores the college. I'm left wondering why I came along at all.

      I wasn't raised to treat service as some sort of television show, an à la carte offering I could change the channel on at the click of a button. Though my family's church attendance waned as I grew older, not once was I allowed to disregard the beliefs and traditions of others. Inherent in this respect is a certain humility. Understanding one's place within context, not feeling above anyone else, the willingness to put others first. In the Bible it is the Apostle Paul who, having denounced Christ in his early life, approaches his ministry with a most humble spirit. In I Cor. 15:9 he says, "For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." A message he repeats several times throughout his epistles he considers himself the least of the saints and the apostles, calling himself the chief sinner of the world.

      Born Saul of Tarsus his adopted name, Paul, from the Roman surname Paulus, is derived from the Latin word meaning "small" or "humble." A perfect fit for a man who preached humility. My own name, Paula, is a feminized version but carries the same meaning: "small." And my second name, Agata, comes from the ancient Greek word agathos, meaning "good." If a name could dictate one's character I would be humble and good, just like Saint Paul.

      But while small and humble may be taken to have similar meanings in Latin, our modern English connotations are strikingly different. 'Small' is a Germanic word that, aside from physical size references, began to mean "trivial" or "unimportant" from the mid-14th century onward. 'Humility', on the other hand, finds its roots in the Latin word 'humus' which means 'ground' or 'soil'. The ground may be beneath us in both the literal and metaphorical sense, supporting our weight and allowing us to move through the world, but it is neither physically small nor unimportant. It is in this distinction that we find the essence of humility. As Saint Augustine explains in his collection, Eighty Three Different Questions, we must recognize that others may have something hidden to us in which they are better than we are but likewise our own good should not remain hidden. Or more simply, as C.S. Lewis never said, "Humility is not thinking less of oneself, but thinking of yourself less." (Though this quotation is often attributed to C.S. Lewis as having been written in Mere Christianity, this line does not ever appear in the book. The original source in unclear).

      It was not this spirit of humility that I embodied when I left the church that evening. Even in my hesitation to leave I was not really thinking of others. I was concerned both with the fact that I wanted to be in church, and with what the priest might think of me. I knew I shouldn't leave, but even that was merely habit more so than a real consideration of the effect I might have on the clergy or the rest of the congregation. My feeling was not one of humility or even guilt, it was one of pride mixed with embarrassment.

      In my own understanding and interpretation, in order to have a truly humble spirit one must also recognize one's own value. In my failure to recognize my own self-worth (whether that be inherent or through God) I search for it in others, leading to a preoccupation with how I might change the perceptions society has of me. This way, even when I appear humble, I am likely serving chiefly myself, failing to recognize that my being has an effect on others as well. In De Natura et Gratia Saint Augustine adds that "humility should take the part of truth, not falsehood." My own humility is a false one whereby I pretend to esteem that others are more important, but ultimately I do not "know the things that are given to [me] from God." (I Cor. 2:12). I am not humble. I am small.

      When I began writing this post many months ago, the conclusion I was aiming for was that while the feeling of smallness might be unpleasant, there are times that I'm helpful for the way it makes me act. I tend toward following the rules and am often agreeable even toward those I do not care for. But that I thought leaving the church was wrong, changes nothing of the fact that I did it anyway. For all the ways in which my concern with what others think may appear to help me be of service, it also hinders my ability to respond to the Other (Levinas).

      The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas wrote in Ethics and Infinity that in an encounter with the Other the human face both "orders and ordains" us. The relationship that Levinas describes between the self and the face of the Other is asymmetrical, we are responsible to the face of the Other and called to serve It. Though we place the Other higher than ourselves we must still recognize our own ability and responsibility to respond to its call. To ignore the call is to kill the face of the Other.

      Just as I ignored the call of the church (congregation and clergy) that night I stepped out into the college quadrangle with my friends, so too have I stayed silent in other cases where I failed to recognize both my responsibility to answer to others but also my ability to affect their lives. This silence can often manifest itself in the form of bad manners, When someone makes me dinner, for example, I should say 'thank you' or 잘 먹었습니다. Instead, fear of saying the wrong thing often leads me to say nothing at all, hurting the cook's feelings and making me look rude. That I think I'm thankful doesn't matter, I fail to respond to the call of the Other. I serve no one, not even myself.

      Levinas believes that it is in the face of the other that we encounter God, When we serve the other we are serving God, The question then, that Wednesday evening, was not one of whether or not I was in Church, but rather one of whom it was that I was ultimately serving. Was it the Other? God? Myself? No one? Was I responding to the call of my friends but not that of the Vicar? Ultimately, my friends would have been satisfied if I had mumbled a quick explanation of interest and a promise to catch up with them later. I needn't have ignored their call in order to respond with purpose and respect to that of the Vicar, the congregation, or of God.

Though there are, admittedly, many times that my fear helps me in being agreeable with others, I'm not sure it's ever good if these actions are born out of smallness. Is that even humility? It's self-absorption. I am neither recognizing my own gifts from God, nor am I responding to the face of the Other, I am simply preserving my own face, in the hopes that those around me won't kill it. I don't encounter God in the face of the Other, only fear.

      I do exemplify smallness in my life, but, unlike my namesake, Saint Paul, I have not yet found humility rooted in truth. The key doesn't lie in a name my parents chose for me, but I wonder if in it I could find inspiration. If you look closely at the etymology of my second name, Agata, you find that the meaning of agathos is closely related to the Russian word godnyj, meaning useful. A similar Polish word, godny, means worthy. It is perhaps in recognizing the grain of truth in this name that I will one day learn to purposefully act as the first. Because if one is to choose humility, they must know that being 'big' is too an option.