Good morning…
“Years ago, someone told me that humility is central to the spiritual life,” writes Parker Palmer on page seventy of Let Your Life Speak. “That made sense to me: I was proud to be humble! But this person did not tell me that the path to humility, for some of us at least, goes through humiliation, where we are brought low, rendered powerless, stripped of pretenses and defenses, and left feeling fraudulent, empty, and useless – a humiliation that allows us to regrow our lives from the ground up, from the humus of common ground.”
“The spiritual journey is full of paradoxes,” notices Palmer. “One of them is that the humiliation that brings us down – down to the ground on which it is safe to stand and to fall – eventually takes us to a firmer and fuller sense of self. When people ask me how it felt to emerge from depression, I can give only one answer: I felt at home in my own skin, and at home on the face of the earth, for the first time.”
“My experience too.” These three affirming words are written in my own handwriting beside Parker’s revelation.
It’s been seventeen years since I emerged from the cocoon of my depression. Now in softened solidarity I pray to God, “Please form a firmer and fuller sense of self in all who are feeling powerless, stripped, and empty today.”
Even when the way goes through
Death Valley,
I’m not afraid
when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd’s crook
makes me feel secure.
You serve me a six-course dinner
right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
my cup brims with blessing.
Your beauty and love chase after me
every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of God
for the rest of my life (Psalm 23:4-6, MSG).
…Sue…
