Humility: Believing ALL of Our Truth
Saturday of the Second Week of Lent – March 7, 2015
MALICIOUS skeptics visited Abba Agathon to see if they could annoy him. They had heard that Agathon possessed great discretion and self-control. They spoke directly to him, “Agathon, we heard that you are an adulterer and full of pride.”
He answered, “Yes, that’s true.”
“Are you the same Agathon who gossips and slanders?”
“I am.”
“Are you Agathon the heretic?”
“No, I am not a heretic.”
“Why did you patiently endure it when we slandered you, but refuse to be called a heretic?”
Agathon answered, “Your first accusations were good for my soul, but to be a heretic is to be separated from God. I do not want to be apart from God.”
[Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert, p. 237.]
The Desert Fathers and Mothers put up with a lot. There are frequent stories that report the abuse they took from naysayers and those who did not understand their lives. Similar to those who frequently tried to trip up Jesus, these skeptics wanted to find holes in the spirituality of the Desert Christians.
For the Fathers like Agathon, this wasn’t a game that one could engage lightly. When the skeptics asked, “Are you Agathon the adulterer . . . full of pride?” he answered honestly. Unlike many of us, he wasn’t interested in putting a pretty face on his life. He was more concerned for the truth. Like the 12-step meeting where we begin with an admission of our failures and shortcomings, the Desert Christians admitted to everything that was true.
“Listen to this!! . . . I’m not only an adulterer and full of pride . . . I also gossip and slander!” This wasn’t some pseudo-confession for the sake of pretending to be vulnerable.
Centuries later, Francis of Assisi would take this same posture. Francis said that he prayed for one humiliation a day. Why? Most of us are undone with one humiliation week. Francis, like Agathon, knew that humiliations were good for the ego. They cut at those places within us where we carry false or grandiose notions of who we are and what life is about. Humiliations connect us with truth, they literally “ground” (humus) us.
And humiliation is related to humility. Humility is not seeing yourself as worse than you are. Literally, humility is seeing and knowing your truth . . . honestly beholding both your darkness, weakness, and shadows . . . and beholding your strengths, giftedness, and light. Humility is the true appraisal of who you are, both the good and the not-so-good.
For that reason, Agathon had a limit to the accusations he could take. There was something that he would not endure. There was one accusation Agathon would not receive. In humility, he recognized his truth as full of pride and slanderous . . . but he also knew his truth as connected to and loyal to God. Thus, he would not be called a heretic . . . because for him, the most priceless, precious thing in life was to be connected to God.
This was Abba Agathon’s pearl of great price, and he would not bear anyone claiming that he was separate from God.
MALICIOUS skeptics visited Abba Agathon to see if they could annoy him. They had heard that Agathon possessed great discretion and self-control. They spoke directly to him, “Agathon, we heard that you are an adulterer and full of pride.”
He answered, “Yes, that’s true.”
“Are you the same Agathon who gossips and slanders?”
“I am.”
“Are you Agathon the heretic?”
“No, I am not a heretic.”
“Why did you patiently endure it when we slandered you, but refuse to be called a heretic?”
Agathon answered, “Your first accusations were good for my soul, but to be a heretic is to be separated from God. I do not want to be apart from God.”
[Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert, p. 237.]
The Desert Fathers and Mothers put up with a lot. There are frequent stories that report the abuse they took from naysayers and those who did not understand their lives. Similar to those who frequently tried to trip up Jesus, these skeptics wanted to find holes in the spirituality of the Desert Christians.
For the Fathers like Agathon, this wasn’t a game that one could engage lightly. When the skeptics asked, “Are you Agathon the adulterer . . . full of pride?” he answered honestly. Unlike many of us, he wasn’t interested in putting a pretty face on his life. He was more concerned for the truth. Like the 12-step meeting where we begin with an admission of our failures and shortcomings, the Desert Christians admitted to everything that was true.
“Listen to this!! . . . I’m not only an adulterer and full of pride . . . I also gossip and slander!” This wasn’t some pseudo-confession for the sake of pretending to be vulnerable.
Centuries later, Francis of Assisi would take this same posture. Francis said that he prayed for one humiliation a day. Why? Most of us are undone with one humiliation week. Francis, like Agathon, knew that humiliations were good for the ego. They cut at those places within us where we carry false or grandiose notions of who we are and what life is about. Humiliations connect us with truth, they literally “ground” (humus) us.
And humiliation is related to humility. Humility is not seeing yourself as worse than you are. Literally, humility is seeing and knowing your truth . . . honestly beholding both your darkness, weakness, and shadows . . . and beholding your strengths, giftedness, and light. Humility is the true appraisal of who you are, both the good and the not-so-good.
For that reason, Agathon had a limit to the accusations he could take. There was something that he would not endure. There was one accusation Agathon would not receive. In humility, he recognized his truth as full of pride and slanderous . . . but he also knew his truth as connected to and loyal to God. Thus, he would not be called a heretic . . . because for him, the most priceless, precious thing in life was to be connected to God.
This was Abba Agathon’s pearl of great price, and he would not bear anyone claiming that he was separate from God.
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