Feb 9 - Just As We Are

Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; *
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.
Psalm 80:18

The twelfth step of humility is that we always manifest humility in our bearing no less than in our hearts...
Benedict's Rule 7:62 (Chittister, Pg. 97)

...true humility is simply a measure of the self that is taken without exaggerated approval or exaggerated guilt. Humility is the ability to know ourselves as God knows us and to know that it is the little we are that is precisely our claim on God.
Chittister, Pg. 97

Seeing ourselves just as we are. How often do I want to be the "best", or think I am the "worst"? I strive for perfection, then think if I am not perfect I am not good at all. I want to be the "best" at everything, not just good at what I am doing now.  I think of all the times that I heard teachers saying "if only". "If only" I could sit still when asked instead of when I wanted to sit still (and even worse, "can't I learn to want to sit still when others think it appropriate?"), "If Only" I could get my homework done, or "If Only" I had a different body shape... "If Only" I could be something that I am not.

I am what I am, we are what we are, we are where we are at. When I stop trying to be somewhere else, stop trying to be someone else, I open myself to growth.

A Note To Anyone Reading:

This entry is part of a series that is developing as I read The Rule of Benedict, A Spirituality for the 21st Century, Joan Chittister, OSB, Crossroads, 2010. I am offering this both to those at St. George's Episcopal Church, Arlington VA, that may be reading this book and to anyone that is interested.

Unless stated otherwise quotes from St. Benedict's Rule are from the translation in this same book.
Psalms are from The Book of Common Prayer, The Episcopal Church, 1979 unless otherwise noted.

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