A Humble Meritocracy

I've been thinking about humility lately, and I'm writing this specifically today because I just read Our Reckless Meritocracy by Ross Douthat, New York Times, and it prompted me to write. He wrote interestingly about America's version of meritocracy and its many failures based on the pride (and thus blindness) of intelligence.

Many have touted humility as a virtue, but there have always been those who thought it unimportant or who have even identified it as a weakness—a weakness to be exploited. But I've been thinking about it lately in the context of it not only being a virtue but a divine trait, and I'm not writing about it as a divine trait solely in the sense that it is something God wants us to develop or that he gives to us through his grace—both of which I'm sure he does. Rather, I'm thinking about it as a divine trait—a necessary part of the unchanging essence of the nature of God. You see it in Jesus Christ, as he humbles himself by choice to come to earth to save mankind. You see it in his life, as he ignores the pleasures and glory of the world to focus on salvific sacrifice. And this week for the first time, I began to think of the humility of God as extending beyond the end of the world and into Heaven.

But to justify that thought, I need to step back and define what I'm thinking about as humility. One of my favorite statements about pride is, "The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen." The quote captures the self-centeredness, the self-elevation, the arrogance and thus the blindness engendered by pride. Humility is a two-part opposite to that: It starts with a reality-based understanding of self and how we fit in and relate to one another and to everything around us (including and perhaps especially to God); then necessarily follows our love-based responsibilities to reach out to all. What better description of an attribute of God? From his life on earth to his unchanging and divine nature beyond this life. The divine trait of humility then: Understanding self and all around you and giving self . . . endlessly. I personally haven't quite measured up, yet, and I'm pretty sure the country hasn't either. But think of it! Living in an America led by a humble meritocracy. Not a bad vision for some day in the future.