Peace Through Humility

In the middle of absolute overwhelm, the invitation to peace is the strongest.

I love how what we often call ‘cliche’ lessons in Christianity have the power to strike us anew at times. It’s almost like these truths are objects thrown into water that sink very, very slowly, sometimes without us noticing. They hit deeper parts of ourselves until coming to rest at the bottom of our hearts when we finally understand them to the fullest capacity possible in this life. 

A couple nights ago I was flipping through my Magnificat and stumbled across Matthew 6:25-34.  

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life… Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air…are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cube to his span of life? … Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these…”

It’s a very well-known passage, and I know sometimes I’ve skimmed over it or read it, nodded, and thought, “well, that’s very nice.” (I only put parts of the passage in here because it’s a tad long, and I think you know which verse I’m talking about 😉 )

A walk a few days later began to bring the passage to life. There’s a field a five minute drive from our house, and I’ve been walking there at least once a week since late April. I’ve seen it gradually transform from a stretch of trampled, brown grass and skinny branches to a blooming meadow surrounded by a fence of thick bushes. For the past several weeks, a new type of flower seems to dominate the field before bowing down and giving the spotlight to a different one. As I’m someone who’s grown up surrounded by pine trees, pine needles, and maybe a couple bushes, seeing nature work on this level is thrilling. 

If you could imagine for a moment that flowers have an intellect and a will like humans, I think you’d agree that all of them should immediately be canonized as saints. 

Really. These beautiful creations are bursting with virtues as much as they are with color. (Of course, they don’t literally have virtues, but let’s stick with the analogy for a moment) 

Hope—they’re always looking up, always smiling, seeming to trust with everything in them that their short, vibrant lives will be looked after by their Creator.

Patience—they actually grow pretty slow but I never hear them complaining about it.

Fortitude—I would certainly not want to live near a path where I could be trampled on at any moment. But flowers do.

Charity—I daresay flowers even have charity, because I’ve never looked at a flower and imagined that it hated me. 

I could probably keep going with that analogy. But two attributes of flowers really strike me: receptivity and humility. 

 

This is true of most things in nature, but isn’t it so that flowers literally have to take everything they’re given? No water—they have to deal with it. Sun—they take it all in. Wind—they bend and bow down. Too much shade from a nearby tree—they lean in a different direction. Perhaps it could be called passivity, but in my mind there’s something receptive here, as though flowers are given something and then react accordingly. They’re not in control…and that’s okay. 

Which leads to the virtue of humility. Of course, nothing in nature can ever be anything other than what it is. Flowers can’t be trees. Even if they could think and choose, they’d probably be okay with being flowers. They cannot do or be more than they are; they are content in their flower-ish-ness. 

That, I think, is what makes flowers much wiser than humans. 

How often do we react violently to situations God allows, kicking and screaming (literally or metaphorically) as we try to drag things back on track? Or how often do we try to control things that aren’t ours to control? And both of those reactions leave us restless, exhausted, and anxious? 

We have so much potential as human beings. We have the capacity to share in the very life of God Himself and be conformed in the imago Christi—the image of Christ. We have a will to choose and an intellect to know and the ability to receive blessings in far more abundance than we can imagine. But what do we do? 

We reach for things that aren’t given to us. We try to be what we aren’t and become what we shouldn’t. 

We want to control all the situations in our lives. But God has already given us a will to control ourselves, and the grace to do so. 

We want every material possession we desire. But God promises us abundant spiritual blessings that will satisfy us far more and, one day, a heavenly kingdom with everlasting happiness. 

We want to know our futures. But God promises knowledge of the next step and the grace to trust him. 

We want to avoid suffering. But God promises not comfort, but His very self, present in our sufferings and far more satisfying than comfort. 

We want to avoid fear. But God promises us courage.

We want all the wrong things and refuse all the right things. We try to be more than we are, not in the way of becoming our best selves, but in acquiring the earthly power and control that we believe will give us what we want. 

Sometimes it feels really good. I love it when I get a fantastic night’s sleep and feel great in the morning and my day goes exactly as I planned. I hate it when I don’t sleep and have no energy and don’t get anything done for one reason or another. When things happen that are beyond my control, I resent my inability to be in control, as though situations beyond my power were mine to dictate, mine to steer, mine to prevent. 

It’s exhausting. But we crave the control so much, or the results of the control, that we keep doing it anyway.

Man are those little flowers smarter than us.

I read in a book recently about ‘obedience to circumstances.’ It’s not a passivity that just accepts what comes but an acknowledgement that what is beyond our power to control, God has allowed for some reason. So, in saying ‘yes’ to those circumstances with love, we are saying ‘yes’ to God’s permissive will. We are saying ‘yes, Lord, I don’t understand why this is happening, but you allowed it, so good will come of it. To that good, I say yes.’

If the wind bows us down and we have no ability to rise, we trust we are here for a reason and keep hoping. We realize what is beyond our power.

Again, it’s not passivity. There is plenty we can and must do in being ‘obedient to circumstances.’ Receptivity is so much about responding to the circumstance as God wishes us to. We receive, we recognize that we are not in control but we are called to do good here, and we act on that good. We recognize our potential for good but also our poverty and humanness, and so rely on God’s power. We recognize that our place isn’t to grasp but to trust and act from that trust. And that creates peace. Not the control or the grasping. 

Knowing what we are and are not capable of in any situation creates a sense of calm that is difficult to describe. We’ve been panicked trying to carry something too large, too heavy for us, and releasing it frees our hands to carry what is ours to carry. Situations beyond our power are not ours to carry. Our own actions—thoughts, emotions, reactions—are ours to carry. We cannot love every person in the world—but we can love those around us. There’s so little that’s asked of us that is still difficult but still important. 

I think that’s where we find God the most: dropping the heavy burdens of fear or worry that have been hiding us from his countenance, taking up the small bags at our feet that were ours to carry, and moving on in quiet trust that we are doing what we were meant to do, even if it is not as big or exciting as we thought. It is simple, though, and it is right. For we know that he is doing the rest and we can surrender into the peace brought by that truth. 

“The Gentiles seek all these things; and your Heavenly Father know that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” ~ Mt 6:32-33

 

Pax Christi,

K.M.