The “H” Word

There is nothing like a spiritual crash to teach a person the meaning of the word “humility.” Indeed, I think it safe to say that a man or woman cannot reach rock bottom unless the basic concept of humility has been forgotten (or never learned in the first place).

A few years ago, when I crashed, humility came crashing in, more or less announcing, “Ok big shot, look at the mess you made of things. Maybe you don’t know quite as much as you thought?” When I read the Biblical admonition on Joseph Campbell’s books, “Of my own self I can do nothing,” well, it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. Hell, I didn’t even know where I came from yet was prancing around the planet telling folks WHO I was and, worse, who THEY were. I’d point my finger and pronouce this or that; I’d use my wit to make folks laugh (often at their expense) and then bask in the glow of that wit; I’d accomplish something and revel in the words of admirers. Never once did I give thanks, did I acknowledge that the “I” who I pictured doing these things didn’t even exist – at least not the way I imagined.

Humility served me well in those early, dark months. It “transformed” me to friends and family alike. “Doug is so different, he’s so much gentler,” etc. Gone was the BIG personality crashing through places because he’d been seen through – that big personality was a mask to hide the enormous insecurities and uncertainties that had plagued the boy/man named Doug Jr.

In recent days I’ve discovered that humility has to be clung to because we as humans have a tendency to easily let it go the minute “things turn good again.” The drug addict “kicks” his habit, the drunk “goes on the wagon,” the womanizer “rediscovers family,” and so on. We imagine we’ve crossed some kind of finish line, turn and thank humility for all its help, and announce that “I can take it from here,” which of course guarantees we completely missed the point because there is no “I” to begin with and it was the “I” that put us in that terrible place to begin with and is now hellbent on taking us right back. You can almost picure the “I” gleefully cackling and rubbing its hands together. Which is why so many addicts, drunks, ex-cons – ALL of us on the road to contrition – wander right smack back into the same place we longed to escape.

Without boring anyone with the details, that is precisely what I have discovered: that humility must be remembered, must be a center of our focus, must become as much a part of our conditioning as any other spiritual principle. And for that reminder I feel very, very grateful today.