On Humility

Good morning once again. As promised, I am publishing a post every morning. Not as promised, this one is more of a "quickie". The really good post is the one that I still haven't written. It will be written, I promise. It sounds easy: "Just write what God taught you." The reality is that is hard to sort out thoughts into coherent and presentable wholes.

Humility is a good thing to have. Sometimes I remember my place in the world, but sometimes I get too "uppity." I had to laugh at myself this weekend at RMGA, though, because sometimes God has a unique way of teaching me what I need to learn.

Now, I see myself as pretty much a country boy. Not too fancy, not necessarily too smart. (you may disagree, but remember that appearances can be deceiving.) Nevertheless, I try to make myself appear relatively respectable. You know, not the chain-dangling, "face-first in a tackle box" look or the totally apathetic zoned-out-teenager look.

I planned ahead for RMGA...I wore what I thought was a fairly clean pair of jeans (only small grass stains) and brought a clean pair. Since we left on a Friday and Fridays are my days to provide homework help, I was in a white polo shirt. Mines Cru bought dinner for all of us on Friday night. The meal of choice was spaghetti, since it's easy to cook in bulk. Now, I like spaghetti and I like my food, so I tend to enjoy it and not worry about mess. It was only after my third or fourth plate of spaghetti that I realized that I was wearing a (formerly) white shirt. Sure enough, although I was lucky enough not to totally destroy my shirt, I had a neat pattern of red specks on my front. Yay! I feel like a retard.

One thing that I found interesting about RMGA was the amount of scheduled "extra-curricular" activity. There was a whiteboard posted to organize free-time activities, and both evening sessions were followed by optional events. The optional event on Friday night was a dance party.

I must include a short bunny trail to enhance clarity. Understand I was raised in the midst of much teaching that said that dancing was a "bad thing". (and people say that homeschoolers have no social pressure. No further comment) In the last 3 years, I have revised my convictions slightly. There seems to be dancing that dishonours God and aims to appease lust. There also seems to be (more traditional) dancing that is closer to wholesome entertainment. The line is sometimes blurred though, and should not be crossed. It's as much in mental attitude as anything. My position is that if I am careful and guard my heart and mind with the Lord's help, I should be OK. Back to the story.

In my mind, a dance is a little like a childhood playground. When sides are chosen on the playground, someone is bound to be the last one chosen. On the dance floor in a "traditional" setting, it would seem necessary for a guy ask a girl to dance. Remember that lowly country boy image that I invoked earlier? Yeah. My estimated odds of success are quite low. Besides, now I'm in a spaghetti-stained white shirt and jeans with grass stains. Life is good, yes? Yes!

All this flashes through my mind in an instant, but I decide that I can't really lose. There are usually two types of people around me. One type is the people that know me. They know that sometimes I do dumb things and generally am not to be taken too seriously. On the other hand, there's the people who haven't met me before and aren't likely to see me again. I'm not concerned about what they think because it won't have future consequences in most cases.

I really can't dance. Between a touch of dyslexia (don't worry, I'm KO now), and having little eye-mind-foot coordination, it's not a pretty thing. Mark Twain was wise, though: "Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth." I decided that I didn't mind making an idiot of myself, and decided to just "go with it."

I must allude to a novel here. Esther Forbes wrote a novel many years ago called "Johnny Tremain." Because he was prideful, Johnny grotesquely injures his hand. For a long period, he believes that it is largely hindering his life. He changes his mind after attending a barn dance with his friend Rab. He has a great time, and realizes at the end of the night that many girls have held that hand, taking absolutely no notice. Thanks to a darkened room, I think I'm the only one who ever noticed my less-than-superb clothes. I don't know if a good time was had by all, but a good time was had by at least one. :-)

The next day (Saturday), I decided that clean jeans were in order. I thought that would allow me to actually have clean clothes for at least one session. Saturday afternoon was play time, though, and finding nothing better to do, I played some intense hard-core Frisbee. I don't happen to be very good at Frisbee either, but I sure have fun.

When I play Frisbee, I am often either laying out (diving) for the disk or tripping and falling. You guessed it: By 4:00 that afternoon, my formerly-clean jeans were trashed. Maybe there is a conspiracy out there. Just because I'm slightly paranoid doesn't mean that they're not sometimes out to get me, you know. :-) Thankfully, I had thought ahead enough that I was able to clean up for Saturday evening session, but it meant a choice between jeans with small grass stains and jeans with el mucho grass stain. Sigh... It happens, just not to everybody.

It is good to be humble. I shouldn't care what others think, and most of the time I don't. It's just funny to see God reminds me in subtle yet powerful ways. Once again, thanks for reading and vicariously sharing my RMGA experience.