I live in Hollywood, perhaps the most humility-deficient place on
the planet. Yet there is much here to inspire meditation on the
subject.
Every morning, I walk down the hill to Hollywood Boulevard to get to the Red Line subway station at Vine Street. The sidewalk is marked with bronze stars dedicated to the glitterati of the entertainment industry. People from around the world come to this street to take pictures of the metal stars. These utterly terrestrial, hardly celestial stars are trod upon by thousands of people with dirty shoes every day. The indentations in the metal plaques are encrusted with dark smut. A man with crutches sprawled on the sidewalk next to him panhandles for money while he slowly cleans the stars with a toothbrush and a rag. He makes them look shiny, but not for long. His work is never done. (He advocates for a global ban on chewing gum.)
Every evening, when I get home to Beachwood Canyon, I take a walk up the mountain toward the Hollywood sign. Often I volunteer to take pictures of foreign tourists as they stand on the sidewalk with the sign in the background. Sometimes I go all the way to the top on the dirt road, above and behind the sign. It consists of a bunch of billboards with metal struts holding up sheet-metal letters.
On the dirt roads and trails up the mountain, I pause to commune with the plants and animals. I have stand-offs with wary coyotes who turn their heads back and forth toward me very slowly to make sure I keep my distance. Recently I walked through Scotch broom as its seed-pods exploded in the hot sun. Each pod grows straight, then dries to a hard brown. The two sides of the pod suddenly snap apart and curl away from each other, ejecting the seeds like little bullets. The snapping and popping was loud and the seeds rained at me as I walked along. I opened one of the intact seed-pods, careful to prevent it from springing apart, and rubbed my thumb across the smooth, dark, hard seeds inside. I wonder at the miracle that is evolution, relentlessly experimenting with mutations to yield the watchful consciousness of a coyote and the clever reproductive system of Scotch broom. I'm filled with humble awe as I sense the presence of the great creative power behind and within it all. Scotch broom seed-pods are no less marvelous than the best that Hollywood humans can produce.
Humility is the state where faith begins. (And faith itself needs humility; the lack of it causes arrogance and violence when one religion claims to be superior to all others.) I am humbled in the face of "things too wonderful for me, which I did not know" (Job 42:3). I am humbled by my puny place on the planet. When I am humbly aware that I've never made anything as cleverly as nature made a humble seed-pod, then I am in love with the sacredness at the heart of the universe.
Every morning, I walk down the hill to Hollywood Boulevard to get to the Red Line subway station at Vine Street. The sidewalk is marked with bronze stars dedicated to the glitterati of the entertainment industry. People from around the world come to this street to take pictures of the metal stars. These utterly terrestrial, hardly celestial stars are trod upon by thousands of people with dirty shoes every day. The indentations in the metal plaques are encrusted with dark smut. A man with crutches sprawled on the sidewalk next to him panhandles for money while he slowly cleans the stars with a toothbrush and a rag. He makes them look shiny, but not for long. His work is never done. (He advocates for a global ban on chewing gum.)
Every evening, when I get home to Beachwood Canyon, I take a walk up the mountain toward the Hollywood sign. Often I volunteer to take pictures of foreign tourists as they stand on the sidewalk with the sign in the background. Sometimes I go all the way to the top on the dirt road, above and behind the sign. It consists of a bunch of billboards with metal struts holding up sheet-metal letters.
On the dirt roads and trails up the mountain, I pause to commune with the plants and animals. I have stand-offs with wary coyotes who turn their heads back and forth toward me very slowly to make sure I keep my distance. Recently I walked through Scotch broom as its seed-pods exploded in the hot sun. Each pod grows straight, then dries to a hard brown. The two sides of the pod suddenly snap apart and curl away from each other, ejecting the seeds like little bullets. The snapping and popping was loud and the seeds rained at me as I walked along. I opened one of the intact seed-pods, careful to prevent it from springing apart, and rubbed my thumb across the smooth, dark, hard seeds inside. I wonder at the miracle that is evolution, relentlessly experimenting with mutations to yield the watchful consciousness of a coyote and the clever reproductive system of Scotch broom. I'm filled with humble awe as I sense the presence of the great creative power behind and within it all. Scotch broom seed-pods are no less marvelous than the best that Hollywood humans can produce.
Humility is the state where faith begins. (And faith itself needs humility; the lack of it causes arrogance and violence when one religion claims to be superior to all others.) I am humbled in the face of "things too wonderful for me, which I did not know" (Job 42:3). I am humbled by my puny place on the planet. When I am humbly aware that I've never made anything as cleverly as nature made a humble seed-pod, then I am in love with the sacredness at the heart of the universe.