Humility without humiliation

Abstract

"For those of you who like a road map, here is my destination: most of us avoid the steep ascent to the mountaintop of humility because to reach it we must go through the valley of humiliation. So long as there is an ounce of egotism in us, humility will feel like humiliation. But Chesterton would have us realize that humility is in fact ingredient to happiness, and by its practice we can be capacitated to live in a state of wonder that he called “Elfland.” He writes, Humility is the thing which is for ever renewing the earth and the stars. It is humility, and not duty, which preserves the stars from wrong, from the unpardonable wrong of casual resignation; it is through humility that the most ancient heavens for us are fresh and strong. The curse that came before history has laid on us all a tendency to be weary of wonders"