Humility is so…humbling

Today, I was in the trendy, progressive, upscale area of the city known as the Central West End. There they are, with their uptight attitudes, expensive clothes, stylish haircuts, and big, gas-guzzling SUV’s (though everyone is also very environmentally-sensitive, of course. Hah.), and there’s me in tie-dye, a ponytail, and bad-driving skills. Beware, my shiny vehicle. The weirdo housewife is careering toward us!

I don’t realize just how much pride I have until I am in humiliating situations like this (you know, trying to parallel park my mini-van while everyone is turning their nose up at me). Logically, it is obvious that if I’m embarrassed, it’s because I have Pride. If I am truly humble, without the need for others’ approval or admiration, than it doesn’t matter if I can’t parallel park worth a damn. Or that I sometimes go out looking scruffy. Or that I have a preschooler (I forgot to mention that the denizens of the Central West End also Disapprove of Breeding).

And so I revel in these moments of extreme humiliation. The shedding of pride is a horribly painful process, and one which I expect will not be complete until the next world, but think of the freedom that comes with it…the ability to do what I need to do, what I want to do, how I want to do it, without continually living with the fear of opinions. If I am already a laughingstock, what else is there to lose? Or, as Salvador Dali so eloquently stated it, ‘The difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad.’ And even better, ‘God resists the proud, but is near to those who are humble in heart.’