A position of total powerlessness

In the "On Being" podcast episode "Growing Up Men," Franciscan friar Richard Rohr talks about praying for "one good humiliation a day." He began doing this years ago when he realized he was growing used to the praise he received and would become easily defensive when someone didn't agree with him. He says praying for one good humiliation a day and watching how he reacts to it helps him kill his "well-defended ego;" he says 10% to 20% of what his critics say is right, and if he listens to them, they are some of his best teachers.

It's something I've been thinking about, as I watch my own reactions to humiliation and disappointment. Without realizing it, I have a fighting ego that likes to be right and admired. This can sometimes cause me to focus on myself and take my eyes off God, which ushers in pain and confusion.

In his book "The Divine Dance," Rohr talks about the ego in relation to God wanting to love us. He writes, "You are bone of God's bone, and that's why God cannot stop loving you. That's why no amount of effort will make God love you any more than God loves you right now. And despite your best efforts to be terrible, you can't make God love you any less than God loves you right now. You are in a position of total powerlessness, and your ego is fighting it. All you can do is surrender and enter into this circle of praise ... we call the Blessed Trinity."

Writer Zadie Smith writes about ego, too, but focuses on it in relation to humans. In her novel "White Teeth," she writes, "What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll -- then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship."

I think if Smith's worldview was held by itself, it would be a pretty bleak one that crippled us from being able to contribute to the world because we wouldn't believe in our goodness and lovability. However, I think if Smith's supposition is simultaneously held with Rohr's foundational worldview that yes, we are lovable, loved irreplaceably by a God who wants us desperately, then these two thoughts together have the potential to set us free. We live in God for love; this is our source. If humans choose to love us, then it is gift, not something we demand. We are already provided for.

This allows us to take ourselves down from the shrines we create to ourselves, allows us to honor people and their free will, and saves us a lot of heartache in trying to find answers to unanswerable questions. My wise mama, Jane Pohlman, wrote it first: "Sometimes the answer is just no." This frees us to love others freely, because rather than focusing on what we receive from them, we focus on what we give to them.

This is love.