More on humility and saints and the integrity of the two...Thomas Merton.
To the truly humble person the ordinary ways and customs and habits of people are not a matter for conflict. The saints do not get excited about the things that people eat and drink, wear on their bodies, or hang on the walls of their houses. To make conformity or non-conformity with other in these accidents a matter of life and death is to fill your interior life with confusion and noise. Ignoring all this as indifferent, the humble person takes whatever there is in the world that helps her/him to find God and leaves the rest aside.
This person is able to see quite clearly that what is useful to her/him may be useless to somebody else, and what helps others to be saints might ruin her/him. That is why humility brings with it a deep refinement of spirit, a peacefulness, a tact and a common sense without which there is no sane morality.
We are a gifted people - gifted by the love of God that promises to make us just who we are - beloved. It is not easy to keep that in mind as our days unfold and we take the journey of being the unique blessed person this each of us. The saint (baptized - beloved of God) does regular battle with everything that tries to grab our attention and turn our lives into a race or a competition when our lives are meant to be an unfolding gift that is not dependent on anything external to us. There is always a pull to conform and a pull to insist that others conform. And yet, the history of God interaction with God's people has been one in which God has insisted on keeping our eyes and our ears to the ways of God's reign. That is enough. That is plenty. That is the beginning of finding the blessedness that is mine alongside the blessedness that is you.
Connection: This is not always easy. But part of the way we will be just who we are to day when we are with others is to take time to listen to the other. In that way, we will hear where we connect and do not connect...we will hear how it is that the other is different...we will hear and begin to appreciate what is different between us and what is quite similar - without either one of us trying to be like the other. The differences may be just fine.
When you remind us of our place within your Reign, O God, you give us new eyes to see the world around us and new ears to hear the many voices within your creation. Keep your words of promise fresh in our hearts so that this day will truly look and sound new even when we are moving along the same old pathways. Amen.
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