Coco Calling No.233 - About the Biggest, the Best, the Greatest and the Least
I used to think that goats were hairy animals with big horns and mischievous personalities. And then I discovered that in human language, GOAT now means the ‘Greatest of all Time.’ Yes, humans have developed an obsession with being the biggest, the best and the greatest in history, (although I’m still not very clear what ‘goats’ have got to do with it).
And what is greatness anyway? Are humans really capable of judging whether one person’s better than another? Well, they certainly like to think they are. It’s in their psyche to come out on top of the pile, and even when they don’t promote themselves, other humans spring out of the woodwork to place them on high pedestals. And they often do this by offering them awards. For example, there are strange people called ‘actors’ who like to pretend that they’re somebody else. And as a kind of ‘thank you,’ other humans come along and give them weird lumps of metal and glass called BAFTAs, Oscars, Emmys, N.T.V.’s, Oliviers, TONYs and Golden Globes. And if you get an award, you’re then sitting on the highest perch of all!
There’s also that other sub-species of humans called ‘singers’ and they do battle at the Brit Awards, the Grammys, the Music Week Awards and the MOBOs. And can you believe it, -humans have even created annual awards for road sweepers, toilet attendees, gravediggers and coal miners. And what happens every time a new American president takes office? Yes, they announce themselves as ‘Leader of the greatest nation on Earth,’ even though they have to oversee more than 400 mass shootings in their country each year. They are so blinkered that they can’t even see the blinkers!
Yes, human judgement is flawed. And so often, human decision-making is also flawed. Because we’re not rewarded for greatness in Heaven. We’re rewarded for humility. The Christian faith turns human values on their head, so that the smallest becomes the biggest; the meekest becomes the strongest; the poorest becomes the richest, and the most infirm becomes the most perfect. And that’s because it’s only when we have humility in our hearts that we’re prepared to let God and Jesus come inside and take control of our lives. And it’s only when that happens that we genuinely become bigger and better and greater than anything else…….
“Humility is the foundation of all other virtues….If you plan to build a tall house of virtues, you must first lay deep foundations of humility.”
(Saint Augustine: [354-430]: Theologian and philosopher of Berper origin, and Bishop of Hippo in Roman North Africa)
“God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves.”
(Dwight Moody: [1837-1899]: Prominent American evangelist)
“Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
(Mark 9: 35)
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”
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