Repairing Relationships
The Hinge That Turns Healthy Relationships
I finally arrived at the five-hundred-year-old late Gothic-style cathedral, and I stood in the main sanctuary imagining the people who set in motion a revolution so vast its effects were pervasive and immeasurable. This place engendered countless books, discussions, and cultural, political, and spiritual changes. This place laid my own foundation of thought. I guess I passed on my enthusiasm for this place to my then six-year-old son, Nate, who was eagerly awaiting the sight of the tomb of its famous representative. The moment we saw the bronze plaque over the tomb, Nate burst out, “Now I have seen everything about Luther, so I can tell my children about it!” (Prior to this we had seen several other Reformation sites.) Then, as we wound around the old stone steps into a neighboring section of the church, I spotted something I hoped to see: a woodcarving of Luther’s first of ninety-five thesis that kick-started the Protestant Reformation. I don’t know if there were more theses on this plaque or just this one, but it didn’t matter because the first one says it all. It’s a hinge that opens the door to an inviting room.
You probably know that Luther’s posting of these ninety-five propositions for academic debate on the door of the famous church in Wittenburg was spurred by the corrupt practice of paying indulgences to the church in order the reduce punishment in purgatory. Luther thought that indulgences bypassed true confession and discouraged giving to the poor and performing acts of mercy. That’s why he prefaced his debate with the first thesis: “When our Lord and master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent,’ he intended the entire life of believers to be repentance.” Repentance is a lifestyle. But is this just a stained-glass idea of a bygone era?
Think about the word repair. One of the things I like about watching the T.V. series “Heartland” is that when a character offends or hurts someone or acts obnoxiously, there is a follow-up gesture of repair in the form of admitting wrong and saying sorry. Repair enables this quirky extended family to live together and have each other’s backs. My dad, too, was good at repair. I remember many occasions where he would admit a wrong and ask for forgiveness. I was blessed to have my father model this so well. Repair can be seen as the goal of repentance. It’s owning one’s mistakes and offering reconciliation. It’s less a feeling and more an action. The mark of repentance is turning around and walking in a new direction, away from the offense, hurt, or obnoxious behavior. It’s a posture of humility.
Humility is a hinge virtue on which other values turn. It opens the door to something rare and true, in short, to a treasure. It’s a treasure that enriches our relationships. To understand humility, let’s look at its opposite: pride or self-conceit. C.S. Lewis calls this “the great sin”* because it’s easily disguised, present in everyone, and leads to other vices. If “you want to find out how proud you are” Lewis states, “the easiest way is to ask yourself, ‘How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronize me, or show off?’” Lewis’s point is that the more pride one has, the more one reacts to it in others.
Why is this? Pride is at its core competitive, and this is what multiplies problems among people. Lewis explains how it works: “It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise . . . Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.” So, to maintain our position of superiority, we take up other vices. That’s how pride becomes a hinge vice.
In a similar way, humility is a hinge virtue that opens the door to other values. What is a humble person? Lewis adds that such a person “is not a greasy, swarmy person, who is always telling you . . . he is a nobody. Probably all you think will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him . . . he will not be thinking about himself at all.” A humble person is neither austere nor egotistical but cheerful, engaging, and sincere. Such a person has a life-giving quality.
How do we become humble people? Aware of our pride and ego, we view ourselves honestly before God and people. Perhaps this is what Luther meant by our entire lives being ones of repentance. We don’t carry around a morbid sense of deficiency, but a realistic appraisal of ourselves. But we don’t stop there because repentance is not a feeling but a decision to act. Taking an interest in others, checking our egos, serving others, admitting wrong, asking for help and forgiveness, these are some of the more obvious actions of humble people. Such practices are only limited by our imagination, but they spring from the decision to think of ourselves less. That’s a long process that can take many years to complete.
Not usually a fan of New Year’s resolutions, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to engage in a humility project this year. Even as I mention it, I realize it’s not something I can talk about, so I say it to cross-pollinate a seed. What if many of us set a goal to spread humility instead of pride? The seeds would sprout and produce a lavish harvest. Big things come from small seeds and humble acts.
*The excerpts come from C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, Book III, Ch. 8.