Spirituality from Below

St. Benedict describes this spirituality from below in the chapter of his Rule on humilitas.  He takes Jacob's ladder (Genesis 28) as an image for our way to God.  The paradox of our spiritual path consists in the fact that we ascend to God by descending into our own reality.  That is how Benedict understands Jesus' saying, "He who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 14:11, 18:14).

By descending into our earth-boundedness (humility is derived from humus, or soil) we come into contact with heaven, with God.  When we find the courage to climb down into our own passions, they lead us up to God.  This sort of humility was prized by the monastic fathers becasue it is the lower path to God, the path that leads through one's own reality to the true God.  The heaven-stormers encounter only their own images of God, their own projections...

We have to plunge through sin into our deepest foundation.  Then we'll be able to climb up to God from all the way down.  The ascent to God corresponds to a primordial longing of humanity.  Plato's philosophy revolves precisely around this human ascent to God in the spirit...

Only the humble, who are prepared to accept their humus, their earth-bound condition, their humanity, their shadow, will experience the real God.  Thus we keep hearing the monks praise humility.  Humility is the path to God, and it is the clearest sign that we have gotten in line with God.

from Heaven Begins Within You, Wisdom from the Desert Fathers

by Anselm Gruen