Beatitudes III

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

I have often wondered exactly what the quality of being “meek” is all about.  I think about the Magnificat – the song that Mary sang as recorded in the gospel of Luke - “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour…”

he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts
he has put down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble and meek.

Contary to common wisdom, the meek are the realists.  They are contrasted by Mary with those who are proud in the imagination of their hearts.   I do not think “imagination” is used here in the positive, creative sense.  I think it is rather about having a false notion of who or what one is. 

We sometimes have a great deal of angst around issues of ‘finding ourselves” (thereby acknowledging that we are “lost”?).  The proud are not realists – they live in an imaginary world of their own making.  I can imagine myself to be a certain kind of person.  The reality of my imagining finds its limit when I bump up against real people in my life.  They tell me the truth about myself.  Hopefully, this “truth telling” is helpful.  Helpfully, this “truth telling’ is hopeful.  The truth of who I am is most evident when I bump up against The Person.  I need to know the truth of who I am before God - that is part of what we are doing this lent.

How then do I become real?

Jesus, in being meek, did not consider his own “needs” first.   

We sometimes think that the Christian life is about putting others first and ourselves second. It is not.  It is about putting others first and not keeping score to see if I came in second.  That's the example we are given.

Comments

[Matt Thompson]

I HAVE found myself. We talk alot about being a complete person all to yourself and everything else is just bonus: a wife, friends, community, etc. I have discovered that I AM complete all to myself, and all those things are nice bonuses. But, being complete means being utterly broken; constantly. My life is not an emotional plane, with some dips and rises, with an overall trend of stability and levelness. I am constantly in the process of being destroyed and remade. It is incredibly painful. But, I think that is the way it has to be, since whatever I am being made into is more beautiful than the last evolution, and he who is in control of said evolution is a much better designer than I could ever be. I wonder if we can TRULY engage life and existence in this world, full of relationships, challenges and lattes, and be "stable." I am starting to think that perhaps these "stable" or "healthy" people are the ones that are insulating themselves from the reality of life. Perhaps...