Humility and Communion

Humility is a strange thing, the minute you think you’ve got it, you’ve lost it!  Humility is being courteous and respectful of others. It is the opposite of aggressiveness and arrogance. I don’t think we are born with it or at least if we are we outgrow it and then we struggle to practice it for most of our lives. If we're humble, we don't blame the poor for their poverty we help them. If we're humble, we don't stone those who sin we plead with them and forgive them.

Now days people are so angry all the time that it’s as if they carry a gun in their bag the whole time. I mean that of men and women. Why so angry all the time? Why is the temper the first thing you show others? Why do you see evil in everything others do and don’t do? 

I’m going to be the arrogant one now and say ‘I think it’s because you are evil, that you only see the negative and ugly things in others, you spend your time questioning everything and looking for something wrong!’     

-    There now I feel better. 

I’m trying to practice humility. Its communion soon and foot washing time. Quite different from washing hands in public like certain medical examinations it can seem like a bit of an invasion. Easy do to with your best friend or partner but not so with other people. The ceremony is unusual and if you are really ‘in it’ and not being distracted by your friend - I think of some of the first ones I took part in they were more about feeling grown up and eating the bread - embarrassing to admit, sorry....

But if you are really fully taking part you can’t help being emotional. It’s a blessing if you allow it to be. I remember years ago when I was a teen and I somehow did not land next to my friend. It would be so obvious if I moved that I stayed in my place frozen staring across the room. On my left side I have no idea who was there my memory blocked it out. I just know that on my right side was someone that I liked, but I still wanted to just be next to my friend and we looked at each other but the white haired granny grabbed my hand and that was it. We were going to wash each other’s feet!!!

As I washed her feet, old and wrinkled as if she’d walked for a million miles I couldn’t help thinking...is this how it feels to wash the feet of Jesus? And then when she was kneeling in front of me and I was staring at her white hair I felt that I was not worthy.

I think this is what humility really means, and communion may be strange for many people but normal for our church. 

So here goes...this is what I will be trying to do...rather than looking for faults in others I must look for good in others and correct the faults in myself. Humility.