Arrogance--the Swiftest Route to Humility

I’ve been invited to look at my arrogance, which is the opposite of humility, and humility is required to be sober and abstinent successfully.  So here’s what I know.

Arrogance is thinking “I’ve got this” and probably don’t need to talk to my sponsor this week, work so hard on meditation, or be vulnerable with the people in my life.   Arrogance is relying on my past, my own willpower, and my big brain to navigate the treacherous waters of addiction, in which, as a food addict and alcoholic, I always swim.

Arrogance is thinking I’ve just channeled six book ideas, exactly the number the psychic Reiki master told me I would write, and then floating on that high of creative energy, assuming the books will simply be assembled rather than worked on.  Arrogance is having a mastermind call that I initiated and organized and believing I was different from the other three, who struggle with the bright lines.  Arrogance is assuming that because I’ve gone 25 days without sugar this stint, I’m better and wondering what on earth I’m going to “get out of” this group.

Arrogance is going through the motions of recovery without honestly asking if I’m feeling any authentic connection, revelation or progress.

Arrogance is assuming that when a group at work goes well, I’ve got unique abilities and can probably write the manual for the rest of the country to work with young recovering addicts. Only to be told two days later that a sizable portion “hate this spirituality group, and that it’s the least favorite” thing they do all week because it’s repetitious, boring, and dull.

Arrogance is thinking that because I find comfort and insight through writing, reading, and talking, most others will too, and if they don’t, too bad for them. Arrogance is working with the ones who want it and letting the ones on the cusp or actively resisting fall by the wayside as “not my job.”  They are my job and they require me to dig deeper, be more creative, and ask for help from others.

I am grateful I was impassive as I heard and felt that hatred and kept my tears until the bathroom afterwards.  I came home and went to bed, heart sick, but perhaps that was an indulgence in self-pity.  Poor JoAnn, not a total success today. 

Arrogance is assuming I will hit a home run every single time I show up because that’s who I am, or else why show up?  Humility is doing good work regardless of outcome, regardless of the way it’s received, being open to suggestions and improvements, and feeling no shame for being a beginner.  If I want more humility, no problem. Something in life will humble me soon enough. 

The Sacred Container of Community

 This week in my Indiana hometown, two eighth grade girls went for a hike in the country. Their bodies were found the next day and the hunt for their murderer continues.  My heart hurts for the families, friends, teachers and neighbors of those sweet girls. I watch the montage of photographs shared by high school friends and I weep. I spent many days of my youth in the woods, rode my bike on country roads, spent entire days outside without my parents  wondering or worrying about me.  Today, we’re revising our narrative of a town we thought we knew, shaken to our core, as my sister put it. I imagine there will be new warnings to children to avoid strangers, in an understandable attempt to keep them safe.

Yet this week, a ten year old Minnesota boy was honored for rescuing a woman who had fallen on the ice in her driveway and was immobilized, calling for help, yet hidden behind trash cans. Had no one come she would have gotten hypothermia.  At a school convocation, the boy commented that although his parents had always warned him not to talk to strangers, he moved toward her cries anyway. Something deeper led him to help.

There’s another story I can’t get out of my head. Earlier this month immigrants from Africa, afraid of persecution and deportation, walked into Canada across the borders of northern Minnesota and North Dakota in 22 below zero weather.  One man lost fingers, another lost both hands to frostbite. They literally risked life and limb for the sake of their children. The pictures of Canadian police greeting these refugees with smiles and hugs flood the internet.

When we hide, judge, close our eyes, doors, and hearts, we’re letting the most frightened parts of ourselves call the shots. It might feel safe for a time, but it’s not who we are as full human beings. It’s when we’re sick, helpless, poor, and bereft that we realize how much we need each other. Challenging times call for us to open our hearts wider, to trust more and to care for strangers.  There’s been a huge outpouring of support, benefits, and prayers for the families of the murdered girls. That response to tragedy shows me we are hardwired to be connected and take risks to create a beloved community.

While money can insulate me from dependence on others (I hire help when I'm in trouble most of  time), I want to say yes when I’m invited to stretch my hand to the next person in need, look them in the eye, and offer support. That’s the only way I know that the fabric of community, so horrendously broken each day in some way, is healed and repaired.

Disciplined by Love

I’m reading Cynthia Bourgeault’s new book, The Heart of Centering Prayer, and although I’ve been a practitioner of centering prayer for years, I feel like a beginner again.  I know that’s a goal of meditation—to become so present that each moment is new--but there’s part of me that also says, “I’ve been doing it wrong for years.”

Bourgeault describes her own profound shift from thinking that the point of this meditative practice was to become empty for God’s presence to realizing that letting go of the current thought was “the main event.”  She writes, “thoughts were not the obstacle; they were the raw material, as every opportunity to practice releasing that focal point for attention deepened the reservoir of “free attention” within me and strengthened the signal of the homing beacon of my heart.”  At some point during her practice, “the strength of this signal becomes stronger than the attraction exerted by the thoughts.” 

It’s perfect timing to read this book that returns my attention to my heart and invites me to dwell there for twenty minutes, twice a day.  I’ve been on a food plan that I’ve followed for three weeks where the elimination of sugar and flour, again, I know, has brought joy and a more profound love for others than I’ve experienced in a while, if ever.  When I wrote about the waves of love I’m feeling in the online support community, a leader commented that’s a result of radically loving ourselves. I get that taking actions aligned with who I want to be is an act of self-love, but I hadn’t realized it also opens pathways for love to flow through.

I hadn’t thought of my sugar addiction as blocking the flow of love, although it made me cranky and irritable often enough, and while I’m not even close to the loving, kind, tolerant person I want to be all the time, I have felt real progress these last weeks.  I’m frequently ambushed by love for the client, sponsee, or directee talking to me, the group I’m sitting with, the stranger who looks me in the eye, and for my sweet husband.

It’s nice to recommit to a meditation practice that is grounded in this love,  and that invites me to become disciplined in this spiritual instrument, the heart.