Careful, self, lest you trip over this balloon-pride and fall flat on your face…

The past few weeks have been what I am tempted to call, for the majority of us, a personal tour through the seven layers of Dante’s Inferno and back. From finishing up one’s magnum opus (okay, so maybe not, but that’s what it feels like), to defending it (did I mention how much I really don’t like public speaking?), to having one’s mind violated by perhaps the largest secretive counter-terrorism operative group still unknown on this side of the universe…yeah, it’s been quite a ride.

I’ve been quite caught up in myself lately. Do you mind if I just get a few things out in the open?

Firstly, this next part may not apply to you at all. If you know to what behavior I’m referring, then it’s probably for you. If you don’t, simply skip this next section. Secondly, you may find this completely an odd medium for an apology, but words are my tools, and the majority of people to whom this apology is addressed reads my oft-peculiar blogs.
Because I care dearly about each one of you and don’t want any of us to end up on the wrong foot (or cast underfoot…or be caught in a never-ending movie saga about cartoon dinosaurs [Littlefoot, much?]), I’ve got to apologize for helping to perpetuate a superior and elitist attitude that runs completely contrary to both Christ’s attitude and a liberal arts education’s purpose.

I believe, at times, some of us have been so clouded with the notion of competitive academics (an extreme sport coming to an area near you!), that we’ve holed ourselves up like Anchorites in our majors (I find this especially true with myself in my major). Some of us have, perhaps completely unaware, propagated the exclusive (yes, almost Gnostic-like) brashness in our area of study. Its, perhaps, understandable - we are, after all, seniors, supposedly on the top of our game; we’ve endured the mental ragging that’s earned us some bragging rights. It’s oh-so true: we have accomplished much that we should be proud of. But in our celebration, have we trampled the very ones we care about most? I should remember the warning from Proverbs 12:18 - before ruin (destruction, the breaking of one’s dreams) the heart of man is proud, before honor (abundance, glory) is humility.

I need to be looking at the Author and Perfecter of our faith. Philippians 2 is thought to be a poem/hymn of the early church regarding the attitude of Christ. Apparently, they were having some of the same issues then as we are still inclined to have today (everyone together now: “human condition”).

“Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort provided by love, any fellowship in the Spirit, any affection or mercy, complete my joy and be of the same mind, by having the same love, being united in spirit, and having one purpose. Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself. Each of you should be concerned no only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well. You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had,
Who though He existed in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied Himself
by taking on the form of a slave,
by looking like other men,
and by sharing in human nature.
He humbled Himself,
By becoming obedient to the point of death
- even death on a cross!
…to the glory of God the Father.”


We should take advice from our wise philosophical predecessor, Socrates, who was attributed to saying, “as for me, all I know is that I know nothing.” If a dude that wise still had so much humility, then I need to bow my head and admit the truth: the universe is limitless, the human soul is infinitely deep, I can’t even remember the summary of the history of human knowledge (and still have trouble with mental math), and hail Mary, this God we serve… wow, there is only a “receding hall of mirrors” of language to describe Him - He’s so “other!” The truth is truer than I thought - I know nothing.

So there really is an ugly side to academics besides defending one’s thesis and having one’s mind ravished during an ungodly oral exam. If you find this preachy or judgmental, please understand, it’s meant to offend my crime first.

Also, this is not a gift basket of empty rhetoric seeping with an over-abundance of pathetic pathos that simply says, “Oy vey iz mir! I can’t help myself for treating you like a peasant.” Instead, it seriously is a reality check for how I’ve been treating the very people around me who have made the past four years of my life not only livable, but bountifully adventurous. May my apologies only be counted sincere by the way I love you from this point forward.