Recently I wrote a couple of News and Views about
control. I want to follow up with my
thoughts and reflections on humility and humour. Now it may not be obvious that there is a
connection between these three things i.e. control, humour and humility.
However, I would like to explore the relationship that I see.The first connection was when I heard a commentator on TV
talk about his time observing Donald Trump, the “so called” President of the
United Sates. Now as an aside, Mr. Trump
is of course the President having won the Electoral College vote, if not the
popular vote. In any case, the
commentator noted than in his extensive observation of Mr. Trump he had never
seem him laugh. I wondered, on hearing
this, why that would be? My initial
reflection was that Mr. Trump, at heart, if he has one (which of course he does
in the physical sense), was a very insecure person who needs to have his ego
constantly stroked.
At the time, I had been reading a book of essays by Helen
Luke which is entitled, The Laughter at
the Heart of Things. It is a
wonderful collection that deals insightfully and widely of many subjects. The
essay from which the title is drawn delves into the attribute or gift which she
quotes Schopenhauer as stating, “a sense of humour is the only divine quality
of man.” In the essay she expounds that,
“ But the individual may tragically remain obsessed into adult years with his
or her superiority or inferiority as the case may be. Nothing more quickly kills the ability to
laugh at oneself which is the mark of a sense of humour.” I cannot imagine Donald Trump ever laughing
at himself. However, I can imagine
Barrack Obama do that and I am sure f I investigate I would find examples of
just that―not
to say that Obama was a perfect president, but I know it would annoy Donald
Trump to be compared unfavourably to Barack Obama if he were to read this―which
he won’t,
What, then, does this have to do with humility? Well, the best statements about humility is
that someone who is truly humble cannot be humiliated. They are too humble to take themselves
seriously and therefore cannot be humiliated.
Following on that thought is another quote by Helen Luke, “to be humble
is to see things clearly.” When we see
ourselves clearly, we will be humbled by what we see—our warts and
imperfections; our shadow; our desire to be perfect despite our
imperfections.
Okay, so there is a connection of all this to the need to be
in control. If we are insecure and at
heart, if we have one at that sense, are not truly humble enough to see how we
are in relation to the world that God has created, there is no way that we can
laugh at the ideocracies and foibles and incongruities of life and most
importantly, at ourselves.
What is at the heart of the matter, according to Helen Luke,
is a sense of proportion. Luke quotes
T.S. Eliot and notes that, “Eliot is expressing here (in the quote) the
identity of a sense of humour with the sense of proportion and the humility
that this engenders”. What is at the
heart of things the joy of seeing disproportion restored to proportion.
Finally, when we have a sense of restored proportion as
Julian of Norwich is credited with saying, “all
shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing shall be well.”
May you be blessed on your journey with a sense of the
laughter at the heart of things.
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