Humble Pie?

Sounds bad. Hard to swallow. Do I really need to feel any more less than?

I am imperfect. A work in slow progress, paradoxically critical, tending to feelings of superiority: judging others; finding fault, feeling “better.” Better dressed, better educated; smarter, healthier, younger, holier. More sober. Unkind thoughts and feelings arising out of nowhere automatically. Often the shortcomings I recognize in others I sense first in myself. I could use some humble pie.

My insecurities build a wall, separating me from Creation. I can remove the wall just by changing the thought; substitute love for criticism, simply by deciding to do so, breaking down the wall with acceptance, with love. I can only fix myself: my thinking and my actions are choices I can refuse to make.

Humility is realizing this, accepting it, enjoying a friendly familiarity with the world and with my imperfect self. as I am. An admission of my shortcomings and a willingness to change will teach me to forgive preemptively. Love and forgiveness turned inward then turned out.

I recognize also a mystical understanding of humility: the willingness, born of prayer and contemplation, to accept world, the wheel of fortune. That having done the best I can I will trust in Providence for the results. I hold the bow, pull the cord and the arrow all the way back, aim best I can and let go, trusting to Universal Creative Energy. If my arrow, aimed badly or blown off course, misses the target I will patiently start again, having learned from the experience.

When I think it through, then, humility is really the way for me to be more than I am, now and in future. The dessert of a lifetime.