“Make no mistake about it; pride is the great sin. It is the devil’s most effective and destructive tool.” – C.S. Lewis.

Since I got two newsboy caps last week, I’ve been thinking about humility and trying to imagine what I look like to other people. Maybe I’m getting vain. I never bothered to think about things like that before.

Maria took a photo of me and said the caps were “adorable.”

Several people messaged to echo her thoughts.

I have to say I have never been called “adorable” at any point in my life, and when I looked in the mirror this morning, I tried to see what I must look like to others.

This is not, of course, possible. I don’t know anyone who sees themselves clearly and as truthfully as others see them. I’ve always seen pride as a thing of self-destructive evil. I think most of us tend to imagine ourselves as we want to be seen, not necessarily as we are.

“Do you wish to rise?” wrote  St. Augustine. “Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.”

This has always been one of the primary Christian ideas that calls to me (and has been forgotten by so many Christians), the idea advanced by Jesus that we need to give more of ourselves than we take from others.

I’m not quite sure what humility means.

I think it means acknowledging my failings and vulnerability and trying to keep my pride in the closet. Whenever I don’t, I regret it.

For me, humility is the ability to let go of some of my pride and still retain my independence and dignity.

Writing a blog on the Internet is excellent training for humility. You either preserve your dignity as you, not others, define it, or you sink beneath the waves and emerge as just another babbling and hostile crazy.

I am learning to shrink and swallow my pride.

I would be lying if I said I could give it up like St. Augustine and Thomas Merton did, but I  have let go more than once and understand the value of walking away from hatred and anger.

“It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life,” wrote Thomas Merton, ” for the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility answers all the significant problems of the soul’s life. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility, all selfishness disappears, and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.”

I confess that my idea of humility is different than Merton’s. God isn’t what it’s all about for me.

Humility means avoiding the idea that I am better than others or that my suffering is more significant than anyone else’s.

When a beloved person or dog in my life dies, I don’t go on Facebook or my blog to mourn the loss with others and seek soothing sympathy. I get messages daily from people telling me their dog has died and they will never get over it.

I am sorry for them, but I also wonder: “what did they think would happen? That their dog would live forever?”

When they die, I thank my loving friends for being in my life and begin thinking about how I can have love and friendship again or better appreciate what I have.

My suffering is not worse than anyone else’s. In this world, we will all suffer great pain and loss.

To me, humility is linked to acceptance. I don’t expect a pain-free life, and I haven’t had one. The things we love will often die before we do if we are lucky.

I thought it would be interesting to look in the mirror or at the picture Maria took of me this morning after I showed her my other new newsboy cap. I like both of the caps; they look like me to me. I am a newsboy at heart.

What do I see when I look at my photo?

I don’t see an adorable or handsome person. I see an older man whose eyes look friendly and soft and whose face is pleasant,  perhaps a little worn. His face suggests he knows things he hasn’t talked about. He looks healthier to me than he did the last time I looked at him.

I don’t see the anger some people tell me I possess, but then I wouldn’t in a photograph of my lover and wife.

Still, pictures can’t lie; they always have some truth.

I think life has humbled me and curbed my anger and pride.

Tyron Edwards writes that true humility is not about groveling or despising oneself; it is a fair and honest estimate of ourselves as we have been created, or as some believe, as God sees us.

If there is a God, I have no idea what he might have thought or seen when he made me or someone like Donald Trump. I think he might have messed up on both ends.

If he did make us, he is certainly not omnipotent.

I like William Law’s definition of humility as nothing but a proper judgment of ourselves. Humility isn’t about denying my strengths but facing up and being honest about my weaknesses, which are much more numerous than my strengths to date.

I think self-confidence is essential in our world. But without compassion and humility, it’s just another form of arrogance.

In the latter part of my life, I understood that I am arrogant and began to see my truth. I remain arrogant at times and am more humble than I used to be. I don’t know how much I can change. I do know I have work to do.

That is a proper judgment of me, I think.

I think I see a lovely, sometimes lonely man somewhere in those eyes; the jowls tell me he is getting older, and a twinkle about him suggests he can laugh and not take the world too seriously. He sees the irony of things. That might be an adorable face, but I can’t see it.

He can be overly sensitive and is often wracked with self-doubt.

I used to cringe when I looked at my face in the mirror, but I didn’t withdraw from looking at this photo. I wouldn’t mind having a cup of coffee with this person.

He might be okay. And I love the cap. It is him.