Humility

Originally I chose the title of this 'blog as a way of expressing my fascination with the endless connections between spirituality and geography that exist. Between the universal and the particular, the interior and the exterior, heaven and earth - or space and place if you like.

Whilst reading this morning, I think I've come across yet one more connector - that of humility. Humility is a key spiritual discipline, one that is found across many different traditions and faiths.

However, it is not just a spiritual word. Its root, comes from the Latin, humus, meaning soil or earth. So being rooted, placed, geographically aware and connected is a key component of the grounded nature of humility.

I remember hearing about how in the Hebrew tradition the word for Adam (representing humanity as a whole) comes from admah meaning ground. We are literally of the ground, any attempt to claim more than this origin is hubristic and deluded. A good test for what true humility is then, just like good geography and spirituality, is that it ought to bring us down to earth.

For me, this indicates that in order to be fully human, we need to get back to our roots, and our earthen nature. Geographically, becoming more spatially literate, and engaging with the world around us, is a natural follow-on from awakening spiritually. Likewise delving deeper into one's soul, learning to be truly ourselves, and cultivating spiritual practices like reflection, silence and community inevitably leads to engagement with our place in the world.