I often walk along a bright Midway creek on a path worn smooth by seasons and footsteps. It doesn’t brag about where it’s been or the loads it carried, but simply exists, accepting each step. Isn’t that like humility? This is not humiliation, being stepped on, but being part of a way that people follow on their journey. The virtue of humility, so often misunderstood in our noisy world, isn’t—as C. S. Lewis wrote—about shrinking yourself down, but about a gentle turning away from a focus on “myself,” a choice that leads to a clearer view of oneself and one’s place in the world.

One more leaf falls down,
its branch connection released,
to its servant home.

I recently gifted my daughter Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, the emperor who wrote in his tent, carrying the weight of an empire while reminding himself repeatedly of his own small place. He saw himself, and all of us, as just a tiny blip in the vast, expansive cosmos. Our days, he knew, are but a breath; our grandest works, just sand slipping through fingers. To truly grasp this isn’t to feel small and hopeless, but to feel free. It means tending to the only real domain we can command, the one life we are given in our time.

Ancient stars above
my life is an exhaled sigh,
presence lights my step.

Imagine St. Benedict’s monastery, a place where lives were ordered in community, people learning their roles, practicing how to live together. He spoke of a ladder, a patient, slow climb down from self-importance. Each step, a surrender: of my way, opinions, thoughts, space. Becoming humble meant surrendering self to community, to something so much larger than oneself. That kind of quiet surrender, it turns out, inhabits a space for the spirit far grander than any ego could construct.

Monk’s self surrender,
choosing to find one’s right place,
giving up grants grace

Later, C. S. Lewis stated simply and elegantly that “humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” Like a mountain stream, rushing along, it doesn’t pause to admire its own reflection; it just flows, purely. This kind of freedom from constantly checking my own status, my own image, allows my eyes to finally see the world, and my heart to genuinely love, unburdened by the constant need to measure up or prove myself.

In stagnant water
Cool spring stream begins to flow
Dank water now clear