Honesty is an integral part of humility, which means saying yes to our humanness, accepting both the agony and the ecstasy of who we are. We are of the earth---humus---and are called to embrace the totality of who we are and who we are not. To accept our limitations and to fulfill our God-breathed potential takes courage. Humility---accepting the truth---requires honesty.
- Praying with Ignatius of Loyola
The words humus, humility and human are connected. To be truly human is to be soil-like, a spacious ground the way the earth is, allowing life in all its variety. This is so difficult for us. Being human we will fail, of course, but being human we will also long to open our consciousness more and more so we can become humus — a ground of acceptance, a ground of love.
- From “Musings” at gunillanorris.com.
Barbara Brown Taylor’s thoughts on being human taken from Leaving Church:
- I thought that being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was, in other words, and that it was not until this project failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to God than my exhausting goodness.
- The good news of God in Christ is "You have everything you need to be human."
- Committing myself to the task of becoming fully human is saving my life now.
- All these years later, there are still a few who believe that becoming fully human is the highest honor they can pay to the incarnate one who showed them how.
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