Earth and Sky

I'm dealing with a situation at the moment, in which God's Wind has blown the breath out of me and words just aren't coming out. So, I decided to go back through my past reflections and post some that haven't ever been posted. I was surprised at how many there were, going back all the way to 2015. This one is from June 2018

Luke 12: 49-56

⁵⁴ Then to the crowds Yeshua said, “When you see a cloud-bank rising in the west, at once you say that a rainstorm is coming; ⁵⁵ and when the wind is from the south, you say there will be a heat wave, and there is. ⁵⁶ Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky — how is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?

I just this morning understood why Jesus called them hypocrites in this passage. It isn’t because they really didn’t know how to interpret “this present time,” it’s because they are refusing to use their own experience and knowledge about life and the ways of the world to do it. He’s saying, “You know how to do this! You know how to reason from indications to outcomes, so if you ignore the warnings that are plain enough for anyone to see, and pretend that you can’t see their significance, you are acting hypocritically.”

Then, in our present world, if it is obvious that our leaders are vain and venal; pompous and petulant; hard-hearted and heavy-handed; then why do we choose to ignore what we know about the unavoidable outcomes of the choices that such people make?

In the last week, two friends of mine told me that they were feeling more friendly towards Donald Trump because their investments were doing really well and the housing market was booming, along with some other observations that they made which all related to their own financial prosperity. I was discouraged. 

Then, I got to thinking about some of the things that Jesus said about wealth and poverty, and about the benefits of being humble and “poor in spirit.”

I got to thinking that being “humble” might have absolutely nothing to do with being self-deprecating, or behaving as if one has less intrinsic value than do other people. I don’t think we benefit at all if we think in terms of relative value, or in terms of a hierarchy of status.

Instead, what if being poor in spirit or humble just meant being simple, plain, and ordinary? 

What if humility was all about freedom, spaciousness, and knowing just how much is enough and being satisfied with it? 

What if we all took a moment to reflect on the source of the word “humility,” and remember that it means ‘of the earth’? 

What if being humble just meant ‘keeping your feet on the ground’?

What if being humble meant having integrity? Being whole? Knowing the certain consequences of always saying, “Me first”? 

What if being ‘poor in spirit’ is simply the right and proper shape of our most essential selves?