The Road to Virtue and Away From It

Devotional Classics, Benedict of Nursia, Excerpts from The Rule

"The ninth step of humility is to withhold our tongue from speaking, keeping silence until we are asked. . . . The eleventh step of humility is to speak with few and sensible words." (p.180)

"Do not be quick with your mouth,

Do not be hasty in your heart

To utter anything before God.

God is in heaven and you are on earth

So let your words be few." (Ecclesiastes 5: 2-3)

I have found that there are some general steps on the road of wrong doing. The first steps have to do with what I think. I forget God. I choose to dwell on what I want mostly. I put other peoples' needs out of my head. I ponder what would feel the best. I think about how to hide my tracks the best. I also focus on how miserable I am without the object of my desire.

These actions of the mind are counteracted by Benedict's steps toward humility. He lists these activities for the mind: Reverence for God, Doing God's Will, Obedience to Others, Enduring Affliction, Confession, and Contentment. In practicing these, I cut at the root of a thought life that wanders into wrong doing.

Then there are steps on the road of wrong doing that I take more through actions. I tend to boast and talk about myself much. I look for ways to get out of doing what I should do. I look for noise and distraction. I try to find things that will make me laugh and feel good. I write and speak with great explanation and defensiveness. I become more concerned with how I look to other people.

Benedict also addresses these in The Rule with Self-Reproach, Obeying the Common Rule, Silence, Seriousness, Simple Speech, and Humility in Appearance. With these actions I find that humility begins to find a place to stay in my life. When my thoughts being to seek God presence and his will through obedience and sincerity, my body begins to follow suit with less boasting, more silence and simplicity.

In particular, my mouth indicates which road I am traveling. It is not uncommon for my mouth to speak what has been on my mind for quite some time. This is not surprising, but does take me by surprise. I am shocked at what I say a times. Further, my mouth also tends to predict what I will eventually do. It may not be literal, but it certainly is real.

So, I may find myself thinking that I deserve to be treated better than I feel I am being treated at work or at home. This will be followed by complaints about how I am treated. Such complaints will be followed by my actions to "get even" with those I see as my attackers. I neglect my work or try to make my kids do things to appreciate me more through laying guilt on them.

So these steps of humility are real disciplines that can bring about humility and steer me from wrong-doing. Such steps can never bring anything without a real desire to please God and a real intention to begin, but they do give some ideas about how my mouth can stop its part in wrong-doing.

I have found that holding my tongue can stop the progression of wrong-doing long enough for me to be reminded of God's presence or my contentment in him. These things can become habits that give space for virtue in my life. Being silent or content are not virtues in themselves, but rather create a path for virtue - a real desire for good - to come rest in my life.

Lord, help me develop thoughts and actions that will house virtue in my life. The desire for good is what makes this life worth living. You alone are good, Father. Let virtue be the tie that draws me nearer to you each day. Amen.

Each word I say or don't say can be a road on which God is invited into my life or sent away from my life. May my words be few and inviting of God and his good.

The Virtue of Humility

Devotional Classics, Benedict of Nursia, Excerpts from The Rule

"Friends, the Holy Scriptures cry out to us saying, 'Everyone that exalts himself shall be humbled; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted.' Therefore, they show us that every exaltation of ourselves is a kind of pride." (p.178)

Benedict's twelve steps of humility cover both the negative and the positive aspects of humility. The negative is putting to death self-exaltation and the positive, a right attitude toward God and oneself.

For all his severity, Benedict begins with the positive aspects: reverence for God, doing God's will, submission to others, enduring affliction, confession, and contentment. Some of these certainly push against my desire to exalt myself because they place me under God and other people, but the focus seems to be on recovering and enjoying my relationships with God and other people. I have found much freedom in submission and confession. Although the way can be difficult, the results bring joy and peace.

The negative aspects are harder to deal with: self-reproach, obeying the common rule, silence, seriousness, simple speech, and humility in appearance. Because of the great abuses of some of these, both in my personal life and historically, some of these steps are hard to use for me. For me, self-reproach and seriousness tend to move me toward self-obsession, which is far from God or humility. However, properly understood each of these can really aid humility by limiting self-exaltation. Silence and simple speech can be quite powerful in limiting self-exaltation.

Benedict locates humility and pride on opposite ends of the spectrum. Where pride is almost the ultimate vice, humility is a very important virtue. Jesus says it is required for entry into the kingdom of God (Matthew 18:3). Efforts toward humility, then are important both in their positive outcome - entry into the kingdom - and their negative outcome - overcoming pride. An interesting point is that pride can only be overcome with humility. Perhaps another way of understanding it is that pride is the absence of humility.

For some reason, it is more natural to think of humility as the absence of pride. Most likely, this comes from a typical cultural bias that sees virtue as merely the absence of vice, peace is no war, love is no hate, etc. However, as C.S. Lewis says in The Weight of Glory

If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive. . . . The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not of primarily securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if abstinence and not happiness was the important point.

And so humility tends to carry the idea of low self-esteem, self-hatred, and spinelessness. A lack of pride does not humility make.

Perhaps Benedict starts with the positive aspect of humility first because of this tendency. Just as love is not merely going without good things for ourselves, but more creating good in and for others, humility is not so much about cutting ourselves down as it is bringing others up. "Do everything without selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Philippians 2:3-4) Humility is the freedom to let others (including God himself) succeed and to enjoy their progress and achievement with a lack of concern for myself. I guess more simply, it is letting God exalt me.

Following such practices as doing God's will, contentment, or confession will bring quick inner objections. So to practice these without inner turmoil and pain, Benedict suggests the negative disciplines to remove the heartache of pride. Humility pushes pride out of my heart and the pushing hurts. So pride must be deflated and destroyed. Self-exaltation inflames pride. Obeying rules, silence, seriousness, and simple speech encourage humility and limit self-exaltation, the primary food of pride.

Lord, what a wonderful promise you've given! You want to exalt me. You want to exalt everyone. You want to share your glory with each of us. I do not believe it most of the time and do not leave room for your pleasure. Help to let my defenses down through training in what I say and do so that I might receive your exaltation: being lowly like Jesus. Amen.

How timely! I have an opportunity to seek humility through enduring affliction and silence in dealing with a person who has not been kind to me. No doubt I will find ways in which I have not been kind to him as well. Funny how these things come up as I write this blog. It certainly brings a sense of realism to the rather "heady" discussion. Mostly, I find that God guides me each day so that these virtues do not remain dead in a book, but can come alive in practice. Perhaps I will find a way to confess to this person and grow out of my fears.

Virtue and Reverence

Devotional Classics, Benedict of Nursia, Excerpts from The Rule

"The first step of humility is to have a constant reverence for God before our eyes. We must shun our tendency of forgetfulness and be always mindful of God's commands." (p.179)

I am ashamed of some of the things I have placed before my eyes. There it is. Should I describe more? No need. Shameful images pollute everyday paths now.

How can I hope to bring a constant reverence before my eyes? I could have a cross before me like a donkey with cart has a carrot before it. Comical, but there may be something to it. Pictures are easily digested by the mind. I see some things and then they are burned on my mind as an image. I need to place pictures before my eyes that bring the image of God before my mind. Some pictures can help. Certainly the creation is one such picture if viewed rightly.

The image of God that Benedict uses are his commands. Not just pictures, but words can bring images to mind. "He makes me lie down in green pastures" or "[His commands] are more precious than gold, much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey from the comb." God's commands bring me the image of his fatherly love when I understand them correctly.

I am mindful of God's commands when talking about them, keeping symbols or words that remind me of them, and writing about them (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). Such concentration on God's commands brings reverence before my eyes as well. I see the world differently. With the "glasses of reverence," I see it as God's creation giving praise to him instead of as merely Matt's candy shop to satisfy whatever craving I might have.

This is good. Humility does come from this sort of viewing of the world. I see my place within God's kingdom as a son and a creation, who needs a Father's guiding hand. Virtue comes not from merely obeying God's commands, but allowing them to change my whole way of seeing into constant reverence and my whole way of being into humility.

Lord, I cannot hope to grow in virtue without such reverence and humility. I have spent long enough following the god of my stomach. I want to live in fear of you, that is, seeking your approval above everything else. Place your word continually in my mind so that a constant reverence might be before my eyes. Amen.