During the halftime show at this year’s Super Bowl, the hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar performed a piece from his 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning album, “DAMN.” It was called “HUMBLE.” and at one time it was a number one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Whether you liked his Super Bowl performance or not, there is a lot of wisdom in humility.
The refrain of the song is:
“Tell 'em, be humble (hol' up)
Sit down (hol' up, hol' up, lil')
Be humble (hol' up)
Sit down (hol' up, sit down, lil', sit down, lil')
Tell 'em sit down (hol' up, hol' up, lil' hol' up)
Be humble (hol' up)
Sit down (hol' up, hol' up, hol' up, hol' up)”
“Down” is the operative word in the song. Even though so many of us want to be upwardly mobile, “down” moves us closer to the ground, which is where we are from as humans. The words “human” and “humble” are linked to the Latin word “humus” or earth; the humble person has his or her feet down on the ground. This posture acknowledges that we humans are “of the earth.”
Although humility is our very texture as humans, it ironically doesn’t come naturally. Some can get caught up in bragging about their children with bumper stickers — “My child is an honor student at success academy.” But what about a sticker that says, “My child learned humility at school this month?”
To be humbled, sometimes we need to eat humble pie. “Humble pie” has interesting linguistic roots. In the fourteenth century, “the numbles” were the name given to the heart, liver and entrails of animals, especially of deer. By the fifteenth century, this word “numbles” had become “umbles.” Umbles were used as an ingredient in pies, and the first record of “umble pie” in print is as late as the seventeenth century. “Humble” means “of lowly rank” or “having a low estimate of oneself,” and umble pies were known to be eaten by those in a humble situation (i.e. the poor); thus, we get “humble pie.”
To “sit down” in humility, as Lamar says, does not mean to be cowardly or insignificant. One of the great liberators in ancient biblical times Moses “was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). Even the prophet-priest Ezekiel, a mortal, understood that there are things we’ll never understand no matter how many years we study for a law or medicine degree. He embraces a humble position of incomprehensibility when he answers a question God asks him with this response back to God: “You know” (Ezekiel 27:3). Ezekiel was humble enough to recognize he didn’t have all the answers.
There’s so much wisdom in humility. The ancient Jewish text Tosefta Sanhedrin teaches that, “When you turn proud, remember that a flea preceded you in the order of Divine Creation.” This is one more reason we should be humble.
Even after his epic novel “Roots” was published in 1976, Alex Haley said that in his office he had a picture of a turtle sitting on a fence post. It reminded him of a lesson taught to him by his friend John Gaines: “If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.” And so Haley said, “Anytime I start thinking, ‘Wow, isn’t this marvelous what I’ve done!’ I look at that picture and remember how this turtle — me — got up on that post.”
Lamar has put the title of his song in capital letters to grab our attention for a critical message: stay humble, stay grounded, regardless of your success. “Sit down” and remember that fleas got here before we did. “Be humble” and reflect on how we are all like turtles on a fence post. Have the humility to recognize that we have received help to be where we are today.
The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery is Dean of Duke University Chapel. His column runs on alternate Mondays.
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